What "Design" or "Home" Words Would You Compare?

"retro" VS "vintage"

As you may have seen earlier this week, Jer Thorp has created visualizations depicting the rise and fall of certain design terms used in the NY Times over the last 25 years. He's looked at how "interior design" has become preferred to "decor" and how the word "retro" was barely used at all 25 years ago. What words would you like to see charted? Let us know after the jump...

Our friends at Ouno Design commented on the original post, asking if anyone has suggestions of ideas for some other word comparisons. One reader already suggested "contemporary" and "modern", terms that are often mis-interchanged. Do you have other suggestions? If so, please comment below.

Comments (12)

I have nothing to add, but I kind of want to get a copy of that graph as a print and hang it on my wall!

What I'd really love is to create a design vocabulary for all the craigslisters out there...

I'm sure you all know what I mean- it's impossible to find what you're looking for, even by using search terms. One man's buffet is another man's sideboard. Dresser - Chest, Hutch - China Cabinet, Chaise - Fainting Couch... it goes on and on.

I wish we could distribute a little furniture/design term manual. *sigh*

hunter green vs. sage green, 1988-2001

chaise longue vs. chaise lounge (When did the Americanized version actually become acceptable?)

farmhousemoderne,

Around the same time Iraq became "I-Rack". It bugs me every time I hear it.

It's great that someone mentioned the tipically misused "Modern". I always wanna yell at whoever says modern instead of contemporary.

eddie p-
They almost ARE interchangeable since so many contemporary (i.e. current) homes are basically modern period rooms. :-)

Thanks, modernguy and farmhousemoderne! We'll run your word suggestions above and see if we get any results. Green has multiple meanings so the results may be a bit skewed. More specific words or word pairs work better, but it's hard to find those in the design lexicon, which, as people have been pointing out, is full of common terms with multiple meanings (eg. modern, contemporary). The one thing this little project of ours has revealed is how much slippage there is in design terminology. If anyone has any more suggestions, post them here. PS "Chaise lounge!" I even hear people saying that in Canada, and French is one of our official languages. I just checked and chaise lounge is actually an accepted spelling in American dictionaries now, albeit as a folk etymology, but nevertheless I really doubt any NYT editor would allow it.

entryway -vs- landing strip -vs- foyer

fugly vs "it made me throw up in my mouth a little"