The word "register"

[Viktor77]

This may be the most random question you've been asked in a while but nonetheless, I'm curious if the term register meaning "a movable plate that controls the flow of air into a furnace, chimney, room, etc" or more specifically, at least in my dialect, a vent into a room, is a technical term or a regional term. Register has a lot of meanings, this is listed as number five in the dictionary I consulted. So essentially, is this use of register attested to in your dialect? Is it common? I doubt for anyone it is more common than vent, but perhaps.

I only heard this word from a select few people growing up in the Midwest. It seemed almost like it was used to emphasise the vent, like don't get too near the register! Of course vent was far more common and I can't recall ever using register myself.

[finlay]

Never heard of it, but furnaces and chimneys are vanishingly rare so there's no reason i would have.

[linguoboy]

Never heard of it, but furnaces and chimneys are vanishingly rare so there's no reason i would have.

How do Brits keep their homes heated then? AGAs? Kachelöfen?

[Viktor77]

Never heard of it, but furnaces and chimneys are vanishingly rare so there's no reason i would have.

How do Brits keep their homes heated then? AGAs? Kachelöfen?

Perhaps furnace is more an American term? Maybe the Brits call it something different and furnace is something specific?

[linguoboy]

Never heard of it, but furnaces and chimneys are vanishingly rare so there's no reason i would have.

How do Brits keep their homes heated then? AGAs? Kachelöfen?

Perhaps furnace is more an American term? Maybe the Brits call it something different and furnace is something specific?

Looks like you're onto something, Vik:

In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace (known either as a boiler or a heater in British English), and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the production of ceramics. In British English the term furnace is used exclusively to mean industrial furnaces which are used for many things, such as the extraction of metal from ore (smelting) or in oil refineries and other chemical plants, for example as the heat source for fractional distillation columns.

[Viktor77]

Looks like you're onto something, Vik:

In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace (known either as a boiler or a heater in British English), and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the production of ceramics. In British English the term furnace is used exclusively to mean industrial furnaces which are used for many things, such as the extraction of metal from ore (smelting) or in oil refineries and other chemical plants, for example as the heat source for fractional distillation columns.

Interesting, and alarmingly incorrect. Heater is fine, it's more colloquial I suppose and I tend to think of small portable individual heaters but I can't see why one wouldn't reasonably call a furnace a heater. But boiler is just wrong because it is something specific, and usually industrial today. For residential use it is antiquated technology because hot water systems like boilers are bulky and often make the installation of central air systems much more difficult. That's why nearly no one installs hot water boilers in homes these days and opt instead for forced air furnaces.

[Astraios]

How can you call it incorrect? It's only as incorrect as you guys calling it a furnace.

[linguoboy]

How can you call it incorrect? It's only as incorrect as you guys calling it a furnace.

How so? A "furnace" just means something that produces heat. A "boiler" boils, and most modern furnaces don't "boil" anything.

[mouse]

I don't think I've ever heard vent before. It's always damper for the piece controlling the air going into the stove and flue for the piece controlling the smoke going out of the stove.
A register is very specifically the big metal thing that has hot water going around it to warm a room, what I think you are calling a boiler? Not the stove that heats the water, just the metal part in the rooms.

[Astraios]

How so? A "furnace" just means something that produces heat. A "boiler" boils, and most modern furnaces don't "boil" anything.

But no, because a "furnace" means an industrial metal-melter or something, and a "boiler" just means something that makes the heating work!

[ol bofosh]

I have a boiler, a fire place, a wood stove (unused) and a gas stove. There's no heating except the fireplace.

[clawgrip]

From Canada I am familiar with damper and flue for vents, but have not heard register.
I also use furnace to refer to the unit that provides heat for central heating systems as well as for industrial heaters, such as blast furnace. I only use boiler for a heater that actually boils water (or some other fluid, if those exist), and heater to me sounds like a portable device, wall-mounted unit, or something similar to that.

[communistplot]

Well, can't say I've ever used furnace or register. We have a boiler that supplies heat to the building and radiators which deliver heat to rooms in the various apartments.

[linguoboy]

How so? A "furnace" just means something that produces heat. A "boiler" boils, and most modern furnaces don't "boil" anything.

But no, because a "furnace" means an industrial metal-melter or something, and a "boiler" just means something that makes the heating work!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer

[Kereb]

I actually have heard register for a heating vent. My mom would call it that, but my dad would call it "the vent". However, my mom is originally from the Netherlands and learned English in whatever passed for ESL classes in Canadian schools in the 60s. She still has some weird anachronisms in her speech (like "wh") that aren't part of the local dialect at all.

And "the furnace" is the thing in the hall closet that heats the air that comes out of your vent (or "register"). My elementary school had a "boiler". And a "boiler room". Oh god, memories coming back ...
Right, the janitor's "office" was just off the end of the boiler room. Sometimes some idiot kid would kick a ball onto the roof of the school and you'd have to go ask Mr. Liu to get it down with the ladder. So you'd go to the Boiler Room's curiously heavy door and then down a small flight of stairs (the room was somewhat below ground for some reason). This was a hot, dark, concrete-floored room dominated by a heating boiler the size of a locomotive, with loud roaring blue gas flames visible through the front of it. Thing terrified me when I was little. Mr. Liu's office was a little room through a doorless frame in the far wall of the boiler room beyond a whole bunch of mops and shelves of cleaning stuff. The light in there was yellow and he always had a radio on really really loud playing some Chinese news station.
So yeah that's what I think of when I hear "boiler".

[popisfizzy]

Strangely enough, we did call it that at our house when I was younger. For whatever reason, that fell out of fashion and we started calling it the vent. That may have coincided with us moving into a new house, now that I think about it. It's strange, because there was no significant difference in the heating system between the two.

[Bristel]

IMI: Registers are the vents which heated air comes out of.

[Astraios]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer

Exactly.

[Salmoneus]

You people have vents that hot air comes out of? What's that for?
I suppose you probably need them if you've got a furnace in your house. Personally, I've never seen that much need for household smelting.

[clawgrip]

You people have vents that hot air comes out of? What's that for?
I suppose you probably need them if you've got a furnace in your house. Personally, I've never seen that much need for household smelting.

Smelting is done in a blast furnace, which is just one type of furnace. You can abbreviate 'blast furnace' to 'furnace', but that doesn't eliminate the existence of other types of furnaces as well.

Even if you believe a blast furnace to be the prototypical type of furnace and thus do not feel it needs to be qualified with an extra word, that still doesn't eliminate the existence of other types of furnace.

Unless you're just joking around, in which case I will direct you to Poe's Law.

[ol bofosh]

Unless you're just joking around, in which case I will direct you to Poe's Law.

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

Very interesting.

But what's it called when you put a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour and people still take you seriously, apart from stupid?

I suppose you probably need them if you've got a furnace in your house. Personally, I've never seen that much need for household smelting.

I just take that as a blatant display of humour. Is there anyone that actually needs a smiley added to that to know it's not serious? (I could be wrong, it could be serious, but I have my strong doubts)

EDIT: just so you know I'm playing too.

[clawgrip]

I meant serious in the "my dialect is better than your dialect" sense, by trying to ridicule others' word usage because it doesn't conform to what he is familiar with.

If he was joking around though, I've thoroughly ruined the joke, so sorry about that.

[Pthagnar]

I just take that as a blatant display of humour. Is there anyone that actually needs a smiley added to that to know it's not serious? (I could be wrong, it could be serious, but I have my strong doubts)

The unofficial motto of the ZBB [which I am still disappointed that Zompist did not put up when he renewed everything] is "Please indicate when you are being sarcastic!"

[ol bofosh]

I meant serious in the "my dialect is better than your dialect" sense, by trying to ridicule others' word usage because it doesn't conform to what he is familiar with.

If he was joking around though, I've thoroughly ruined the joke, so sorry about that.

I don't know, I found it amusing (laughing with not at, I mean) and I learnt something new. (is there a smiley for sincere but not serious?)

[ol bofosh]

"Please indicate when you are being sarcastic!"

I'll keep that in mind...