Have you ever heard someone referring to a room in their home or another part of their home (often a porch), as their “Fronch Room” or their “Fronch Porch.” What is the origin of this phrase or reference? I am concerned by the number of hits I get when I google the phrase and yet, I thought it had to be a mistake.
Can you shed some light on this word and/or phrase?
Many thanks!
bettetee
Never heard of it, but you’re right, there are a lot of Google hits. Is it just a cutesy alteration of “front”?
Haven’t heard the phrase, but is it pronounced more like ‘front -t + ch’ or like a tortured ‘French’ ( a la Better Off Dead)?
Could be a clue as to its origins.
My guess for the Google results is a combination of typos and intentional mixing of the French pronunciation of “France” with the English word “French.” A fair number of the google hits that I looked through were quoting a scene from the 1985 John Cusack movie “Better Off Dead,” in which Cusack’s character’s mother does this in putting together a “Fronch” dinner for a foreign exchange student: “Fronch dressing. Fronch fries. Fronch bread. And to drink…Peru!”
“Front” room? We used that when I was growing up to refer tp the living room. I grew up in Boston and my mother was English.
Are you sure it isn’t just an unfortunate splicing of the words ‘Front’ and ‘Porch’ (FRONtporCH)?
I haven’t heard it before.
panamajack nailed it in three.
With all due respect, I am fairly certain the word “fronch” is a combination of “front” and “porch”…but why? It can’t just be a typo, because there is a song/album by Folse Potts by the name “Sitting on the Fronch Porch.” Which, of course, doesn’t mean that someone isn’t spelling and/or combining the words, but even as a combo it doesn’t really make sense. One truncates the word “lunch” and “breakfast” to create a third and separate (and, one might argue, more accurate) description. The word “fronch” doesn’t achieve anything new or streamlined, as would “Fronch.” If anything, “fronch Porch” is redundant. Anyone else care to comment or explain the origin or excuse?
In this area people refered to the front porch and back porch. Maybe it’s someone that grow up in New England and thought everybody was saying fronch.
I’m sorry, this is going to come off sounding mean …
There’s all of one hit at Google for “fronch room”.
Fronch porch gives only 148. That’s not much, by Google standards, especially for a potentially common phrase. Nevertheless, it bears some looking into – it might be an obscure phrase.
The album you mention is the first hit for ‘Fronch Porch’. But even if you go to that site, you can see the album cover - and it says “Front Porch” right on it. The rest of the ‘fronch porches’ all look like misspelt ‘fronts’ - there doesn’t seem to be any special meaning to the phrase.
The other uses of “fronch” are mostly as A.I. Wintermute described - typos and modifications of ‘French’.
Unless you missed my earlier question, it sounds like you haven’t actually heard anyone say this phrase (or defend it as proper). If you have, my apologies, but this appears to be nothing more than a typo.
Here in Chicago, we have “front rooms”, which, in the Chicago dialect, does indeed sound like “fronchroom” or “frunchroom”. (I’ve been sitting here repeating it to myself, and my Ohioian husband notices it even more than I do.) It’s more pronounced (so to speak) on the South Side than the north. But I’ve never seen it spelled that way.
WhyNot’s post is exactly right, but thought I would add that the room in question is the living room, which is the “front room,” or room closest to the front of the house in a Chicago-style bungalow. It is pronounced like “frunchroom” (all one word), but spelled “front room.” Also true that it is more common to hear this on the South Side, but I hear it all the time on the NW side, where I am from.
Midwest (Indiana) here and we have front porches and front rooms but I’ve never heard it as fronch or frunch.