"Kitchen table "

[James Smith]

IMO, the kitchen table has, through time, been the
place most financial and other business gets gets
done, not simply discussed, by the working class
family.  This is perhaps a waning image as every
McMansion now seems to include a home office.

To me, kitchen-table issues are issues that affect the
pocketbook and well-being of the "typical" family.
When I read or hear of "kitchen table" scenarios, I
picture the kitchen table spread with the bills, bank
statements, and other documents of family economics
and the parents discussing how to make ends meet.

--- Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:

> Saturday I heard someone being interviewed on PBS
> who repeatedly used the phrase "kitchen table
> issues."  It was new to me--though Google gives
> several hundred instances of similar "kitchen table"
> locutions.
>
> The epithet "kitchen table" seems to signify "of
> concern to ordinary (American?) folks (or maybe
> families)."  I don't know whether the metonomy
> "kitchen table" invites us to visualize an earnest
> married couple in leisurely confabulation after
> supper--or a harried single mom desperately trying
> to persuade her unruly children to eat their
> vegetables so they can stay healthy, since they have
> no health insurance.
>
> --Charlie
>
>
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> The American Dialect Society -
> http://www.americandialect.org
>


James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org