Hallucinating distinctions (was New Jersey Dialects)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 20, 2004, at 12:34 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> ... I'm referring to the use of
> "davenport" in preference to either "couch" or "sofa." "Davenport" was
> the only term used in East Texas in my childhood, though locals
> understood both "sofa" and "couch." If I remember rightly, "davenport,"
> like "frigidaire," was originally a brand name. In this case, it was
> the brand name of a sofa or couch that could be pulled out into a
> bed...

see DARE on "davenport" (and "daveno", which certainly started as a
trade name, and which now is definitely old old-fashioned).  a fair
number of speakers seem to have dropped the conversion-to-bed feature.

arnold