Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Words I Wish We Used COMMON

[Liz Ryan Cole (lizryancole]

I'd like to suggest that the term "common" is a wonderful word, which conveys 
just the sense we'd like to convey as more and more people learn about 
cohousing.

Just put new england town common in any search engine and you will see 
thousands of images, many of which capture the sense of a central place used by 
all for activities ranging from solitary nature watching to noisy games by 
children, to community sales and farmer's markets, to music , etc. etc. - all 
for individuals and groups.  Whether common house (as in Meeting House) or 
common hall (as in Town Hall), I think the sense conveyed by Common is one 
worth keeping.

liz

Pinnacle Cohousing (developing) and
Loch Lyme Lodge (approaching 100 years of welcoming guests)
Lyme, NH


On Sep 7, 2015, at 10:27 AM, John Sechrest wrote:


the choice of words has to be a function of the audience you intend to
communicate with. If you intended to communicate with members who are
active in cohousing, you may find the need to use different words that if
you intend to communicate with new prospective members who are new to
cohousing.

Certainly, the choice of words impacts the connotations and the experience
of the participants. Awareness of the context of the audience helps to be
more effective on communicating.

Selecting the choice of label without that context is likely to have more
unintended consequences and surprises.
On Sep 7, 2015 5:50 AM, "R Philip Dowds" <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> wrote:

> 
> “Community hall” is a pretty nice substitute for “common house”, although
> it has a more formal, institutionally rigorous ring to it — something with
> which not all cohos would be comfortable.
> 
> But like anything else — banks, dentists, city councils, whatever —
> cohousing has its own lingo and jargon not immediately obvious to the
> civilians:  “Cohousing”, “common house”, “common meal”, “consensus”,
> “sociocracy”, even “community”, are lacking in widely shared, determinate
> meanings — and might, in some audiences, trigger an early negative
> response.  But this may be unavoidable.  I’m not yet persuaded that the
> only words allowed are ones that everyone already knows, or that our prime
> audience is people who don’t want to learn new words and concepts.
> 
> So I’m not convinced we really have a problem here.
> 
> Thanks,
> Philip Dowds
> Cornerstone Village Cohousing
> Cambridge, MA
> 
> PS:  For some urban cohos, like mine, the common house does indeed have
> families living in it.  It’s an apartment building with a really big and
> useful lobby.  Not a bad model ...
> 
>> On Sep 6, 2015, at 8:40 PM, Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah <welcome [at] olympus.net>
> wrote:
>> 
>> I too find "common house" a term which is misleading to the uninitiated.
> It's not a house which multiple families live in, a la commune. It's not
> even a house. When referring to it, to visitors for example, I refer to it
> as our "community hall". That takes care of the common ownership, and
> "hall" makes people think of a meeting hall, a dining hall, a parish hall,
> a place for big events, a place more public than a private home. Which
> pretty much covers the territory.
>> 
>> Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
>> RoseWind Cohousing, long-built, in Port Townsend WA
>> (where we are finally getting some rain)
>> 
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