(no subject)

[42itous]

What is the difference among* a porch, a deck, and a patio?

*The difference between "among" and "between" is that "among" is for comparing three or more things, while "between" is for comparing exactly two things.

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

Ours is large (12' x 10') and 3 floors up, made entirely of wood with nothing but posts/diagonal supports. We've got a Somerville porch. :)

Interesting! I wonder where else those are called porches. They were always balconies in Michigan and upstate NY. In Troy, we lived on the 2nd floor of a very Somerville-looking building (2 identical apartments on top of each other). Our "balcony" there was directly above our landlord's "porch." Just to complicate things by way of Coraline's definition, both living rooms had sliding doors to the [outside thingee.]

[42itous]

I agree with lifecollage: I would use "porch" for what she has -- although I might not think it strange if I heard someone else call it a balcony. I use "balcony" for a structure with a smaller area and no roof. In my mind, a porch has a roof, and the differences between balconies, decks, and patios are in the height above ground and the square footage. Actually, I think a large-area outdoor living area with no roof would be a deck even if it were multiple stories up, or I might call that a porch as an umbrella term. I think a patio must be at ground level and have a tile or flagstone surface and no permanent roof.

I asked this one because my mother-in-law calls her back porch "the patio" and I wondered whether that's a regionalism. But maybe I don't have any eastern-midwest natives here to query. The funny thing is, she has a flagstone-paved area on the ground near "the patio" but I don't think she calls that a patio.