Chairs or seats in cars?

[threespires]

Which is correct?

[s94wht]

Seats.

[ChevronB19]

Seats, unless it’s a Dino (cf. ‘chairs and flares’ - one for the youngsters)

[swisstoni]

Here’s a chair

[Pica-Pica]

swisstoni said:

Here’s a chair

Or is it a seat with a back?

[jdoubleu]

EmailAddress said:

Chairs are freestanding.

Seats are fixed.

I think a chair is a type of seat.

[swisstoni]

Pica-Pica said:

swisstoni said:

Here’s a chair

Or is it a seat with a back?

It’s a chair.

[Chubbyross]

A chair in a moving vehicle becomes a seat. A seat removed from a moving vehicle becomes a chair.

A seat:



A chair:

[Chromegrill]

And the chair of the board might sit on the seats in a Chairman.

[Monkeylegend]

2CV's have deckchairs.

[dvshannow]

Chromegrill said:

And the chair of the board might sit on the seats in a Chairman.

I like the way you think

American cars used to have chairs basically barges with sofas

[craigjm]

Surely a chair has a leg structure and a seat doesn’t

[Lester H]

Sorry, couldn’t resist responding: Old Granada Ghia ,and later Scorpio, had a sofa as the back seat.

[Monkeylegend]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ohh3M6HxUY
.

[donkmeister]

The key to language is whether your message is understood by the recipient. To that, I'd say that "chair" will be understood in context, much as how when someone says "pull up a pew" they don't literally mean "please obtain an ornate wooden bench from a church and bring it here".

I'd say "car seat" when the context is unclear, not just "seat". E.g. if I wanted any old car seat and was looking on eBay I'd expect "seat" to throw up all sorts of non car related things. Thinking about it, must be a bugger to buy a SEAT seat on eBay.

Now... If people can just stop using "bolt" to refer to all machine screws regardless of whether they are a bolt, I'll be happy.

[IJWS15]

IIRC the correct term for the bit you sit on is "squab"

[Pica-Pica]

swisstoni said:

Pica-Pica said:

swisstoni said:

Here’s a chair

Or is it a seat with a back?

It’s a chair.

It’s one (of many) types of chair.

[Lester H]

This good humoured thread has now generated enough linguistic subtlety to be plagiarised into an M.A. The graduate may then visit many garages in the interest of researching seats before submitting a Ph.D.

[threespires]

Lester H said:

This good humoured thread has now generated enough linguistic subtlety to be plagiarised into an M.A. The graduate may then visit many garages in the interest of researching seats before submitting a Ph.D.

I like it!

[mat205125]

ChevronB19 said:

Seats, unless it’s a Dino (cf. ‘chairs and flares’ - one for the youngsters)

Lol, that's only to make the naming rhyme