McMansions (was: Boughten bread)

[Beverly Flanigan]

"Build thee more stately McMansions, o my soul,/ As the swift seasons roll."

At 08:40 AM 12/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>I don't know what "McMansions" are in other parts of the country, but the
>term has been around in Oregon for quite awhile to designate the kind of
>oversized, pretentious house that has sprung up in upscale subdivisions and
>in rural areas.  Typical features are a 3- or 4-stall garage and a
>pretentious-looking front door with cut glass windows and some kind of
>grand portico.  In subdivisions they mimic California suburbs by taking up
>nearly all their property and thus crowding together cheek-by-jowl; in
>rural areas they tend to occupy developments of mini-estates that have
>taken former farmland out of production or replaced large stands of stately
>fir trees.  For all their pretentious grandiosity, they still manage to
>look cheap.  A great word for a miserable phenomenon.
>
>Not that I'm biased or anything.
>
>Peter Mc.
>
>--On Wednesday, December 10, 2003 10:45 AM -0500 "James A. Landau"
><JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:
>
>>2) in an article about developers taking over old airfields, someone was
>>quoted as complaining about the developers building "McMansions".  Now
>>"mcjobs" is plausible and reasonably obvious in meaning, but what the Mac
>>is a "McMansion"?
>
>
>
>*****************************************************************
>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************