# What is an airing cupboard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 21, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400 "2010-11-21T02:43:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/21 "2010-11-24T07:20:04Z")
I first encountered “press” meaning closet when I read Heidi. Airing-cupboard I think I learned from Famous Five books. (Julian Dick Anne, George and Timmy the dog. The song is somehow engraved in my brain when I can’t always keep classes of antihypertensives straight) When my parents put shelves up in the furnace room I said, oh an airing cupboard. I was 9. Reading extensively as a child means you have a an odd vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/22 "2010-11-24T19:45:25Z")
In the _Bridget Jones’s Diary_ books, Bridget has a co-worker named Perpetua who is forever looking at investment properties. Bridget overhears her complaining to someone about “That is not a fourth bedroom. That is clearly an airing cupboard.” How could you possibly confuse the two? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/23 "2010-11-24T19:55:48Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > “That is not a fourth bedroom. That is clearly an airing cupboard.” > > How could you possibly confuse the two? You couldn’t. It’s a joke - an absurdity rifting on the high price and unrealistic claims of property vendors in London. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/24 "2010-11-24T20:47:24Z")
Hmmm. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/25 "2010-11-25T07:41:23Z")
What’s not to get? That’s precisely what it is. It’s been a running joke in the British consciousness for many years that London property vendors make overweening claims on tiny properties. For example [a 6’ x 12’ flat for £170,000](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23382708-170000-snooker-table-sized-flat-is-smallest-ever-residence.do). Saying “that’s clearly an airing cupboard” is a joke about that sort of claim, written in a typically Helen Fielding style. (BTW my iPhone “corrected” ‘riffing’ to ‘rifting’. Weren’t me.) ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/26 "2010-11-25T16:13:01Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Reading extensively as a child means you have a an odd vocabulary. True, and it makes you good at “Jeopardy.” The pantry comments raise the question of the difference between “pantry” and “larder.” To me pantry is any closet/cupboard that you store groceries in- canned goods, boxed stuff, etc. “Larder” has the extra connotation of being able to store fresh things like milk, butter, eggs… and that it somehow is cooler (temperature-wise, not style-wise, although I suppose a larder COULD be quite stylish…) than a pantry. > [@](#): > > “That is not a fourth bedroom. That is clearly an airing cupboard.” Clearly a joke. Like saying in the US, “that’s not a fourth bedroom, it’s a closet.” ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/27 "2010-11-25T16:23:24Z")
I knew someone who lived in an efficiency apartment with a Murphy bed; the bed was removed. She put her twin bed in the closet and slept there! It was just big enough for the bed and a nightstand. I don’t know what she did with her clothes. The apartment itself was good sized; the LR and kitchen was, I mean. No bedroom apart from the closet. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400/28 "2010-11-25T16:41:44Z")
My airing cupboard is about 5’ x 5’ btw. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-an-airing-cupboard/561400.md?page=1)