The list of boring terminology used in our industry is virtually endless. We've been merciful and limited our list it to those few listed below.
Axminster - That's Ax-min-ster NOT Ax-min-is-ter. Stop saying that! Anyway, it's a town in south west England where machine weaving (of mainly multi-colored patterned carpets) was developed. Clever people those English, naming Axminsters after Axminster.
Bonded Urethane Cushion- What you call it when you want to charge more for Rebond Pad.
Carpet Odor -
Ah the sweet smell of newness! New car interiors, freshly painted walls, New clothes; all good stuff. New carpet also has an aroma. Synthetic carpets aroma is like fresh, clean, vinyl and wool can be as bracingly 'refreshing' as a petting zoo. In every case, however, the aroma of newness is always temporary. Sisal and Seagrass have the aroma of freshly mowed lawn. In all installation ventilation helps expedite the process of elimination.
Continuous Filament - Yarns made of synthetic materials (nylon, olefin, polyester, etc.) are made of individual fibers that are of unlimited lengths. So theoretically we could create a strand of PetProtect nylon fiber that begins here in distant and exotic Riverside California and run it continuously to wherever you are. Pretty neat. We've not yet taught sheep to grow wool like that.
Denier - Is a weight to length measurement and it's used to determine the size of a fiber. If you take a gram of something, say the equivalent of seven sticks of freshly chewed and malleable Wrigley's Spearmint gum, and stretched it uniformly for 9,000 meters, roughly 5 ½ miles, then sliced it half, the thickness would be one denier. And the higher the number, the thicker the gum, er...fiber. So six denier fiber is soft and fine and fifteen denier fiber is larger, more confident feeling, and durable.
Dye-Stuffs - A dumb name to be sure. These are highly concentrated chemical substances in powdered and liquid form that are mixed with large quantities of water and used to add color to carpets. These same chemicals have been used for over a century to add color to many things, upholstery fabrics and clothing among them. So if your customers are sick and nervous about chemical dyes and you happen to notice that they're wearing clothes. Tell them to calm down. They're already covered in the stuff. Or I guess that would be stuffs.
Gauge - The distance apart of needles on a tufting machine. So a 10th gauge carpet has 10 needles per inch in width. I know, this is highly technical stuff. In woven goods it's called Pitch, which measures the number of needles in 27 inches. Back in the olde days 27" was the standard width of carpet looms until someone figured out how to make them wider - hence the term broadloom. There isn't a loom anywhere in sight at most carpet manufacturing facilities today but we still call carpet broadloom. Before looms were broad, samples were just cut in full width from the salable material and although it no longer makes sense from a waste-free usage standpoint, we still make samples 27 inches (or 13 ½") wide. Go figure.
Hand - Stupid industry-speak for how a carpet feels. We can't say it feels good. We have to say it "has a good hand". We're not alone in goof-ball jargon. In the food industry something doesn't taste good, it "eats well" or, even worse, "it's a good eating piece"
Nap - Not what you were doing while we were waxing poetic about Denier, it's the fuzzy part of the carpet above the backing. Another word for Pile
Pile - In a sentence, you wouldn't call it 'a pile', although I suppose it could be a pile, you'd call it 'the pile': Which is another word for nap.
Power Stretcher - A piece of equipment we wish installers would use more often.
Staple - A fiber that is not continuous (generally wool in our industry) that ranges in length from three to six inches and is spun into yarn. Why it's named after a u-shaped piece of wire with pointy ends is anybody's guess.
Tackless Strip - Does not feel tackless when you step on it barefooted.
Wilton - A city in southern England where a method of machine weaving carpets in either solid colors or multiple colors (up to five total) was developed. Frames behind a Wilton loom each hold an individual color up to a maximum of five frames. Sooo, a Five-Frame Wilton has five colors. Again, this is highly technical stuff. Clever people those English naming Wiltons after Wilton.
(Surreys were also first made in Surrey)
