# Foy-er, foy-yay, or fwa-yay?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foy-er-foy-yay-or-fwa-yay/702190
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 22, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foy-er-foy-yay-or-fwa-yay/702190 "2014-10-22T20:52:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foy-er-foy-yay-or-fwa-yay/702190/41 "2014-10-27T21:25:11Z")
> [@UDS](#):
>
> Indeed, private houses don’t have front halls, unless they are large enough also to have back halls, great halls or servants’ halls. At most, they generally just have a hall.
I heard an explanation for the use of the word “hall” to mean a relatively small space at the entrance of a house. The great hall once occupied most of the space inside a castle or fortified house. Over the centuries, separate rooms set aside for eating, sleeping, and so on, came to occupy almost all of the living space, until all that was left of the “hall” was the space near the door.
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foy-er-foy-yay-or-fwa-yay/702190/42 "2014-10-28T00:16:12Z")
> [@Learjeff](#):
>
> I don’t know where you get this idea . . .
My point is not that houses have no hall. It’s that it’s pretentious to dignify it as the _front_ hall unless there is a second hall from which it needs to be distinguished. It’s like having a master bedroom in a one-bedroom flat.
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