Carpets and stoves

[coccinelle]

i was giving an english lesson yesterday and the pupil's book had carpet and stove to translate what my dictionary translates as rug and cooker. I always say carpet for a floor covering which goes right up to the walls and a stove for me would be moreso like an Aga oven. It's not an american english book. What are your opinions?

[boxtops]

My mother used to use the word "stove" for cooker but in the old days the cooker had a fire in it -as you say similar to an Aga. dictionary.com suggests stove relates more to the heating function that the cooking aspect http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stove
I think I would agree - a wood-burning stove, but a gas or electric cooker.

[chokkie]

and a carpet is a floor covering, as you say, that goes from wall to wall and may be fitted. A rug or a mat is a much smaller "carpet" that just covers part of the floor. The French also have two completely words for Carpet and Rug. Not that that's got anything to do with your question, of course, coccinelle!.

[coccinelle]

That's right chokkie; so I don't know why this book (and I must say I know older people were taught the word 'carpet' for a rug years and years ago over here) should teach these two words. I'm going to write to the editors and ask them and also look through the book for other strange translations...
Yes, boxtops, my grandmother called the place she cooked on and in, a stove but it was a big thing which was fed with coal! and kept the kitchen warm.

[ethandron]

ah ha, so you're an english teacher!

[coccinelle]

Yes, ethandron but I only give private lessons at students' homes!

[dothawkes31]

A Cooker has an oven but you don't put a pan on the oven you put it on the stove and you don't put a pie in the cooker you put it in the oven, nor do you put a pie on or in the stove, you don't get cooker chips though only oven or frying chips. Cooking oil is for the oven or a fryer not for a cooker though.

[boxtops]

Cor dot, I'm glad I'm not trying to teach English, I was told when I did my TEFL course many years ago that English has so many variations and complexities, it's a nightmare to learn the detail!

[dothawkes31]

Oh and carpets? Stair carpets can be just partly covering the stairs, but isn;t a rug, thoigh some people woild call them runners, and stair rods are not rug rods or carpet rods eveb though a fitted stair carpet can have stair rods, and carper tiles are only a few feet square and not necessarily fitted but they aren't rug tiles , but carpeting is what we call it when we have fitted carpets but is it rugging if we have lots of rugs?

[coccinelle]

I agree dot that a cooker has an oven it's also got a hob or rings on the top. A stove in my opinion is a very large thing which was used for cooking and heating the kitchen. The word it translated in french was 'cuisinière' so definitely a cooker.
I agree with you too boxtops it can be mind boggling, to say the least...

[coccinelle]

rugging ???!!! Why not? LOL

[jake-the-peg]

I think once the distiction between carpets and rugs was on size

Since the advent of fitted carpets the notion in most people's minds (or at least in mine) is that a carpet is fitted and a rug is not.

To me stove is a synonym for cooker but rather old fashioned in feel. Both would be free standing as opposed to oven more likely to be built in

[coccinelle]

Exactly so that's why I can't understand that in a modern english book to teach foreign students they use carpet for a rug and stove for a cooker. In the picture where these two objects are you can see a rug and a modern cooker. Actually, cookers are going out of fashion to be replaced by a hob and an oven so heaven knows what they'll call these... I'm waiting for an answer back from the editors, you never know I might end up getting a job with them!!!
You say a rug would be put in front of a fire or next to a bed but it would also be a rug if it was under the coffee table wouldn't it? or under a dining-table?

[Mosaic]

...and we still tell the story about Aladdin and his magic carpet, but then read small ad's in the posh newspapers for Persian rugs.......
The same posh papers carry adverts for stove-top griddles (a piece of cast iron).
I'd suggest 'cooker' is a term for a contraption combining hob and oven, and came into usage around the same time as 'lounge', 'porch', and 'garage'. The 'cooker' was invented for small suburban kitchens. Our great grannies put the kettle on the hob, lit the gas ring or lit the gas oven, and often had both ie a cast-iron coal fire and oven 'range' in the back kitchen and a later-installed gas cooker in the scullery.
You don;t hear of the old-fashioned suicide method being putting your head in the gas cooker....only the gas oven.
Which goes to show......something.