Fun fact! It used to be called the parlor and was basically only used for home funerals, so was casually called the death room. When the funeral industry became a thing, rebranding it as "the living room" was an effort by the Ladies Home Journal in 1910 to get rid of the creepy feeling most people associated with that room, to make it a nice place for families to hang out while still alive.
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
231 points (88.1% liked)
Showerthoughts
29261 readers
611 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Posts must be original/unique
- Be good to others - no bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
i strongly doubt that many people had the money for a room that they just used to present someones body if they died.
It was also used for formally entertaining guests and wedding receptions. It was where the expensive furniture and good dishes were kept, that you didn't really use except when trying to impress people. So yes, it wasn't for families who lived in a one room, dirt floor hovel, or families that had servants and many formal entertaining rooms that they could afford to use regularly and maintain, but if you were middle class and had enough for a "good room" that you wanted to "save for best" then that was what it was used for. https://www.simplysoldaz.com/the-death-room/
Also- 30% of people died before the age of 5 in 1900 England and USA, so it's not like they rarely had occasion to use it.
There's a part in one of the Disc World books by Terry Pratchett (which are fiction, but roughly analogous to that time period in England) where we are being introduced to Granny Weatherwax (a witch) and it is said of her that she never ever uses the front door of her own house, because that is for brides and corpses and she didn't plan on ever being either of those.
My parents grew up in working class 1950s Britain. My dad's parents slept in the kitchen (with a curtain round the bed for privacy), which was also the room that most "living" was done. The three kids shared a single small room, with both teenage boys sharing a double bed, their older sister got her own single bed, and she stayed there until she married and moved out in her early twenties. I remember seeing that room and even as a child it seemed cramped, no space really for anything else once the two beds were in it.
While the whole the family was living, eating and sleeping in two small room, an immaculate "front room" / parlour was kept solely for the two or three days a year where they had "company" (a family event like a wedding or funeral, or the priest visiting or something). The front room was bigger than both the others. It's hard to comprehend the priorities that led to this sort of thing, but it was apparently extremely common in that time and place.
Our lore is weird
One of the previous owners of my house died in the living room about 5 feet from where I'm sitting right now.
Doesn’t the smell bother you?
Only for the first few months.
Dang. But how is it possible to die in the room that's designated for living? 🤔
Talent. And the heart attack probably helped a little.
They were contrarians, I guess.
Maybe the trick is never entering the living room in the first place. What is dead may never die.
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Living room is by the front door so setting up the hospice bed in the large room with the easiest access to the exit makes sense.
Hospice? Exit door? Not necessary in the Eternal Life™️ schematic.
I wonder what room in the house is most often died in (what's the dying room?). Bedroom? Kitchen?
The masturbatorium.
Badroom, obviously!
Gonna guess bedroom, as we're most vulnerable while sleeping, whether from external forces or internal.
Bathroom? Going out Elvis style
I don't have a living room. Am I fucked?
Or can I exist on a technicality that any room I live in, is a living room, and therefore if I never leave my bedroom or game hobby room, I'm good, right?
... R-Right?
yeah, just eat healthy and exercise and drink plenty of water and you'll be free to roam the earth.
The earth is my living room
Leave the living room at once. It knows you're there.
and take care of your liver.
But we have a German saying "Daheim sterben die Leut'." which means "People die at home.
My education is fiction so: Valar Morghulis (GOT), and Live together die Alone (LOST).
The mathematician defines the entire R3 space as living room