The sofa is the story of a product moving downmarket, being gradually available for all. The word first appeared in English in the travel compendium by Purchase published in 1625. It originated from the Arabic word for wool, suffa, and it is in Arab countries where the sofa is seen for the first time. The description is of “a sofa spread with very sumptuous carpets of gold upon which the Grand Signor sitteth”. And for the next three hundred years or so, the word retained its Eastern flair as being the place where the grand vizier or the pasha was sitting.
But now, the sofa is to be found in every home. Just make a search for the word, and you will find hundreds of buying options in almost every price category. In Life Magazine in 1962 Marilyn Monroe gave a long interview, but refused to have photographs made inside her house, saying, “ I don’t want anyone to see exactly where I live, what my sofa or my fireplace looks like”. The sofa had become the heart of the home.
Sofa and couch were more or less equally used in Great Britain and the USA until the 1960s. Since then sofa is more or a British word, couch tends to be used in the USA. The word of the day tomorrow is couch.
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