The "This Might Be A Stupid Question, But...." Thread

[snowfire]

New question:

What is the difference between a Breakfront, Sideboard and Buffet?

My mother has a Buffet, my SIL has a Breakfront and my other SIL has a Sideboard. They all seem to serve the same function: drawers & cabinets to store dishes/table clothes, etc. Sometimes food is placed on top for large parties.

Do you have one of these things and what do you call it? Why?

(I actually have a buffet, but I guess I can't call it that because my TV, stereo, etc. are on top of it and I store the videos/dvds/games, etc. inside. )

What I consider as a buffet, and maybe a sideboard, though we never used that term in my family, is a piece of furniture about waist high with drawers & such for storing table linens & such and it has a flat top that you can put food type stuff on.  What we call a breakfront is a two piece item.  The base has drawers & shelves with doors which we always used for yet more table linens, candles & holders, vases.  The top part has glass front doors and shelves where  you can display pretty items.  The whole thing stands about 6.5 feet tall.  I was told it was called a breakfront because the two pieces "break" apart for moving.

This is what I would consider a buffet.



This is what I would call a breakfront.

[Bethalize]

New question:

What is the difference between a Breakfront, Sideboard and Buffet?

My mother has a Buffet, my SIL has a Breakfront and my other SIL has a Sideboard. They all seem to serve the same function: drawers & cabinets to store dishes/table clothes, etc. Sometimes food is placed on top for large parties.

I went to the Oxford English Dictionary to check this.

Sideboard - A table (esp. for taking meals at) placed towards the side of a room, hall, etc. 1377
Buffet - a sideboard. First recorded use 1718
Breakfront -   Used esp. attrib.: a piece of furniture having a front of which the line is broken by a curve or angle. 1928

So there you go. The same thing, just the words are different.

[LazyDaisy]

WillyNilly wrote:

"This must vary by state not "U.S. government rules" because I have a Ford F150 that is by most definitions a "truck" but it is legally registered as, and taxed as, a passenger vehicle ("suburban") not as a "truck" and as such it is legally allowed on parkways, which in my state at least, are highways that specifically outlaw trucks and any commercial vehicles. I know of no one in my state who's SUV was legally considered a "truck" it is purely a social term for the vehicles."

National regulations involve the manufacture of the vehicle and safety regulations for selling them, and taxation on import.  Registration, sales/use taxes and fees are always handled at the state level so that definition will vary by state.  By U.S. government rules, which cover the safety tests they must pass, emissions and engine standards, and design rules, SUVs are trucks.  I wouldn't see a problem saying they are "cars" in the passenger vehicle sense, but I do think that saying they're not trucks is inaccurate because of the above.

Virg

I agree with Virg. A reason why SUV's are considered "trucks", from what I understand, is that they are manufactured on the same chassis, have the same motor, and same transmission as a full-size pickup truck. So other than some extra sheet metal to fill in the body and extra seating, a Ford Explorer is fundamentally the same as a Ford F150.

[violinp]

New question:

What is the difference between a Breakfront, Sideboard and Buffet?

My mother has a Buffet, my SIL has a Breakfront and my other SIL has a Sideboard. They all seem to serve the same function: drawers & cabinets to store dishes/table clothes, etc. Sometimes food is placed on top for large parties.

Do you have one of these things and what do you call it? Why?

(I actually have a buffet, but I guess I can't call it that because my TV, stereo, etc. are on top of it and I store the videos/dvds/games, etc. inside. )

What I consider as a buffet, and maybe a sideboard, though we never used that term in my family, is a piece of furniture about waist high with drawers & such for storing table linens & such and it has a flat top that you can put food type stuff on.  What we call a breakfront is a two piece item.  The base has drawers & shelves with doors which we always used for yet more table linens, candles & holders, vases.  The top part has glass front doors and shelves where  you can display pretty items.  The whole thing stands about 6.5 feet tall.  I was told it was called a breakfront because the two pieces "break" apart for moving.

This is what I would consider a buffet.



This is what I would call a breakfront.

I would call the second one a china cabinet.

[Dindrane]

If you look at the middle section of the glass-doored cabinet snowfire posted, it sticks out just a bit from the ends. I think that is what makes it a breakfront.

I would also imagine that the term "china cabinet" is more inclusive than the term "breakfront." In other words, a china cabinet can describe just about any piece of furniture with shelves suitable for storing/displaying china and glass doors, whereas a breakfront is a specific type of china cabinet.

As far as buffet vs. sideboard, I think they refer to the same piece of furniture and are synonyms of each other.

[Thipu1]

New question:

What is the difference between a Breakfront, Sideboard and Buffet?

My mother has a Buffet, my SIL has a Breakfront and my other SIL has a Sideboard. They all seem to serve the same function: drawers & cabinets to store dishes/table clothes, etc. Sometimes food is placed on top for large parties.

Do you have one of these things and what do you call it? Why


(I actually have a buffet, but I guess I can't call it that because my TV, stereo, etc. are on top of it and I store the videos/dvds/games, etc. inside. )

We don't have any of these things but relatives have.

  MIL has a Breakfront.  This is a tall piece of furniture with drawers below and a place to display glassware and china above.  Her Breakfront has no exposed counter where food can be served. 

My mother had what we called a hutch.  This was a piece of furniture in two parts.  The lower part had doors and shelves inside to store things.  The upper part was separate and had no doors.  It had shelves to display china or glassware.  There was space on top of the lower section where dishes of food could be set out.

Sideboards and buffets were pretty much the same thing.  Either could be about waist high with shelves behind doors on the bottom where things could be shelved.  In the old days, sideboards were more elaborate than buffets.  They often had mirrors mounted on the back between towers of drawers that held silverware or serving pieces. 

Buffets lacked the mirrors and the towers of drawers but the did have a slightly raised and decorated backboard. 

The purpose of both a sideboard and a buffet was to provide a place where a casual meal could be served.   

[Diane AKA Traska]

New question:

What is the difference between a Breakfront, Sideboard and Buffet?

My mother has a Buffet, my SIL has a Breakfront and my other SIL has a Sideboard. They all seem to serve the same function: drawers & cabinets to store dishes/table clothes, etc. Sometimes food is placed on top for large parties.

Do you have one of these things and what do you call it? Why


(I actually have a buffet, but I guess I can't call it that because my TV, stereo, etc. are on top of it and I store the videos/dvds/games, etc. inside. )

We don't have any of these things but relatives have.

  MIL has a Breakfront.  This is a tall piece of furniture with drawers below and a place to display glassware and china above.  Her Breakfront has no exposed counter where food can be served. 

My mother had what we called a hutch.  This was a piece of furniture in two parts.  The lower part had doors and shelves inside to store things.  The upper part was separate and had no doors.  It had shelves to display china or glassware.  There was space on top of the lower section where dishes of food could be set out.

Sideboards and buffets were pretty much the same thing.  Either could be about waist high with shelves behind doors on the bottom where things could be shelved.  In the old days, sideboards were more elaborate than buffets.  They often had mirrors mounted on the back between towers of drawers that held silverware or serving pieces. 

Buffets lacked the mirrors and the towers of drawers but the did have a slightly raised and decorated backboard. 

The purpose of both a sideboard and a buffet was to provide a place where a casual meal could be served.

We have what the furniture store said was a breakfront that is identical to what you called a hutch, except it has two small doored compartments (each about the size of a box that could hold a gallon milk jug). 

[Virg]

Diane AKA Traska wrote:

"We have what the furniture store said was a breakfront that is identical to what you called a hutch, except it has two small doored compartments (each about the size of a box that could hold a gallon milk jug).  "

A breakfront is a type of furniture, not a description of a piece itself.  To give you an analogy, if I walked into my kitchen and said I had a side-by-side, and you responded that you'd call that item a refrigerator, we'd both be right.  Then I could walk into my living room and point out another side-by-side, which holds the TV.  "Breakfront" means that it's got a specific shape to the front of it, so one could have a breakfront hutch and a breakfront china cabinet and while it would be confusing, you could legitimately call them both a "breakfront" for short.

Virg

[Diane AKA Traska]

It's probably here that I should mention that, at the age of thirty-nine, I have never been furniture shopping.  Mom and I always lived together, and it was her province to buy the furnishings, and she only passed recently (has it really been FOUR years?!), so we've still got the old furniture.  But we are going to move soon, so when we do I'll be buying furniture for the first time.

Assuming I don't buy it off Craigslist...

[camlan]

There's the technical definition of breakfront: A piece of furniture having the line of its front broken by a curve or angle.

And there's how furniture manufacturers use the term, which seems to be a piece of furniture with cabinets on the bottom and a glass door display area on top, regardless of the shape of the front.

My parents had a buffet with a definite curve to the front of it, so it was a breakfront buffet. But it did not have the china cabinet part on top. Still a breakfront, though, because of its shape.

[Slartibartfast]

I was watching this beautiful video and it made me wonder: how do you write down dance choreography?  I mean, the other arts all have written forms: there's a standard way to notate a play, film script, sheet music, etc.  But it seems like even if you wrote down the technical terms for the dance moves, you'd still need a way to say "You do this one facing this way, then turn and do this thing with your arms while your feet are doing this other thing, and then you try to express this emotion while doing a whatchamacallit going that direction."  Do you just have to videotape everything?  And what did people do before videotape?

[blue2000]

I was watching this beautiful video and it made me wonder: how do you write down dance choreography?  I mean, the other arts all have written forms: there's a standard way to notate a play, film script, sheet music, etc.  But it seems like even if you wrote down the technical terms for the dance moves, you'd still need a way to say "You do this one facing this way, then turn and do this thing with your arms while your feet are doing this other thing, and then you try to express this emotion while doing a whatchamacallit going that direction."  Do you just have to videotape everything?  And what did people do before videotape?

You can write it down. All the great ballets you see are written, although they may be adapted for a particular performance/director. Dance movements on stage have a language just as much as play and film movements (Walk, stage left. Leap, stage right. Run, centre). I have no idea of the names of all the steps, though.

[carol1412]

I was watching this beautiful video and it made me wonder: how do you write down dance choreography?  I mean, the other arts all have written forms: there's a standard way to notate a play, film script, sheet music, etc.  But it seems like even if you wrote down the technical terms for the dance moves, you'd still need a way to say "You do this one facing this way, then turn and do this thing with your arms while your feet are doing this other thing, and then you try to express this emotion while doing a whatchamacallit going that direction."  Do you just have to videotape everything?  And what did people do before videotape?

You can write it down. All the great ballets you see are written, although they may be adapted for a particular performance/director. Dance movements on stage have a language just as much as play and film movements (Walk, stage left. Leap, stage right. Run, centre). I have no idea of the names of all the steps, though.

Here's one example of dance writing - it's the Lilac Fairy solo from The Nutcracker
http://www.dancewriting.org/acrobat/ballet/SheetDance_Lilac_Fairy.pdf

[RebeccainGA]

I was watching this beautiful video and it made me wonder: how do you write down dance choreography?  I mean, the other arts all have written forms: there's a standard way to notate a play, film script, sheet music, etc.  But it seems like even if you wrote down the technical terms for the dance moves, you'd still need a way to say "You do this one facing this way, then turn and do this thing with your arms while your feet are doing this other thing, and then you try to express this emotion while doing a whatchamacallit going that direction."  Do you just have to videotape everything?  And what did people do before videotape?

It looks similar to what stage managers do for plays. Symbols and diagrams and arrows and such. It's called "dance notation"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_notation

[guihong]

How do you make a pound sterling or Euro symbol on your keyboard?  Is there a key you can "activate", or do you need a special kind of keyboard to make that?