ranting

sometimes, i'm a little bit hard on people who use words incorrectly. i can also be somewhat judgmental about ads that suck, television that sucks, art that sucks um...poetry that sucks. okay, i'm a total snob. yes.

but i have to get serious now about the topic of naming rooms for the purpose of selling houses. i've noticed lately, as i am a huge fan of real estate in general, that more and more home listings are referring to family rooms as "the bonus room."

this egregious misnaming bothered me slightly at first. but today, it became more than an irk. see, i was looking at someone's myspace page for pictures of their new house. and beneath the photo of the family room, the caption read "the bonus room."

seriously. bonus room means nothing. NOTHING. is it where you hang your bonus check from work? is it a room that you didn't expect to get with the property you purchased? was it such a surprise that you actually jumped up and down proclaiming, "i can't believe this house came with this bonus room, it is so much more than we asked for." no. that is not the case. you bought the house and the room under a pretense that it was an extra. but it's not. you paid for it with the selling price and interest rate and anyway, call the room what it is. use den. or family room. call it cozy or sprawling or whatever. just don't, DON'T, call it a bonus.

just another way that using words to mean something they don't dumbs down the english language. think about the kids. the children, after all, are the future.

and who wants our future using the word "bonus" to describe run of the mill ordinary things? i for one, am against that idea.