Estate-agent-ese

[owl]

Why is it that estate agents seem to be incapable of writing English, but instead produce pamphlets full of their own weird jargon?

First of all, the thing they are selling is always a 'home'. Not a house, a home. Sometimes it's a 'comfortable family home', but the horror can increase, as sometimes it's a 'prestigious home' or a 'unique home', or worse yet, an 'almost unique home'.

Then there's the main body, so to speak, of the copy. Usually it's semi-literate, with the most basic errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The thing to remember about this part is to take it with a liberal amount of salt.

For example:
Mature garden=overgrown wilderness à la the Sleeping Beauty's castle
In need of renovation=in need of demolition
Convenient to [major road]=built beneath the underpass
Quiet rural setting=back end of nowhere, reached by twelve miles of unmetalled lanes
Spectacular views=perched on cliff edge

and so on.

The end is in sight when you see a floor plan. However, there are still the labels: 'lounge' and 'sun room' or possibly 'reception area' or even 'vestibule'. Did anyone ever call a room in their own house a 'lounge' or a 'vestibule' when they meant sitting-room and hall? (Even in an airport, 'departure lounge' seems to me a shabby wriggling out of 'waiting room', in an effort to suggest the passengers are enjoying themselves. No-one could lounge on those chairs, and the carpet's too thin to do it on the floor.) As for sunrooms, that's a little over-optimistic in Northern Ireland, don't you think? Surely 'weather room' or 'windowed room' would be more appropriate? I suppose it's a minor improvement on 'conservatory' meaing 'PVC lean-to with own muggy micro-climate'.

Usually there's a photograph, or for 'new builds' (what has the poor gerund ever done to estate agents to be so rejected?), an artist's impression. Of course it's to be expected that the artist's impression should bear little relation to the muddy building site, cluttered with bits of rafter, heaps of topsoil, concrete blocks, assorted rubbish and Portaloos, of reality, but how do they work those photographs? Surely they can't all be taken on the three days of fine weather per year? And the ones of the gardens always seem to be taken at ground level to give a Borrowers-eye-view of the size of the place.

Comments

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

Here it's almost always a living room. Or a 'Den,' if it's the one in the basement where the old, expendable furniture is relagated so that the children can be sent there to play without damaging anything important.

My personal favorite stupid label on a building plan was 'storage hall.' Because that's apparantly what we're calling unfinished atticks with no floor these days.

[owl]

Or a 'Den,' if it's the one in the basement where the old, expendable furniture is relagated so that the children can be sent there to play without damaging anything important.

We call that one a playroom or gamesroom (depending on the age of the children concerned), except mostly it's over the garage or in the attic, because basements aren't common here (I only know of one house that has one. The bedrooms are all below ground. Rather them than me.)

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

yeah, out west (california), where my mom's folks are from, they don't really have basements either, so they're dens/gamesrooms are either in the attic or just attached as a seperate room or screened porch (because it never ever rains in Los Angeles. It apparantly drizzles sometimes in January. The 'LA River' is really hilarious, because it looks like someone left their garden hose on).

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

...and please ignore the almost criminal lack of grammar and usage in the above. I think I'm going to go turn myself in to the syntax police for this.