Job Discussion Forums

[globalnomad2]

Yes, that can be confusing. My impression is that 'terrace homes' ( a fairly loose term, actually) in the US refer to apartments or two-storey homes that are connected to only one or two others. In other words, they are duplexes or triplexes in either townhouse or apartment style. In that way they differ from townhouses or row houses, which can be two stories (or more) and are built in linear fashion extending at least a block long.

In the UK and many of its former colonies such as Malaysia, a terrace house = a townhouse in US-speak.

In the UK a semi-detached house = a duplex in the US (usually).

In the UK a detached house = a single-family home in the US.

In other places such as Malaysia, they have adopted English misnomers due to an incomplete lexicon in English real-estate terminology. So a single-family home in Malaysia (even the prime minister's palace) is called a "bungalow," even though the definition of bungalow in both the US and the UK is "a small, single-storey house."

And, of course, in the UAE, any kind of upgrade from an apartment is automatically called a "villa," even though the British definition of a villa is a detached or semi-detached house, usually SUBURBAN, while in the US a villa is a country residence or estate--we usually think of it as a fairly grand structure.

Not that anyone gives a **** about this, but I happen to like houses (I have invested in a few) and I like words

And yes...where was I? We'll be living in on-campus terrace homes, or villas, or semi-detached whatevers.

[Stephen Jones]

Bungalow comes from the Raj (form the Hindi 'bangla' for Bengali type house).

In India, and Malaysia was a British colony for a long time and inherited the same administrators and vocabulary, a bungalow would be the single-storey house that government officials would use (usually in the cantonment).

As a result it came to mean government residence and so would apply to the residence of the Malaysian Prime Minister (the Indian Prime Minister's house is also called a bungalow, but actually is one, belonging to the colony of Luytens bungalows that were built for the new capital of New Dehli; people who visit Indira Gandhi's house where she was assasinated are amazed to find that she lived in a 1300 square foot single storey house).

[veiledsentiments]

The real estate industry does like to make it all sound a bit more grand than it actually is. If the ad says 'attractive starter bungalow' - you know that it will have no storage or closets and two people can not be in the kitchen at the same time.

When I first arrived in the Gulf, the term 'villa' always felt misleadingly grand to me.

VS

[globalnomad2]

Stephen: That's interesting to know...thanks. But Malaysians nowadays refer to any detached house as a "bungalow."

[globalnomad2]

Just a little update--contact hours for EFL people at GMU are now 16 hours maximum!--indefinitely, as far as I know.