What's in a name?

OK, so let me ask you: what is a French door? Give me a proper definition. No wait, let me guess - you probably think that a French door is any set of double doors, with lots of little glass panes in it, leading from the interior to the exterior of a house. Right? Well, let's just say that if you think that, then you are as ignorant as I am.

A French door is any door, double or single, interior or exterior, that has multiple lites in it (and yes, they are spelt l-i-t-e). Lites are individual glass panels, which range from teeny tiny to the full length of the door. Now, and this is where it gets interesting, the TYPE of French door you have depends on the number and size of the lites.

Why am I telling you this? Because I discovered that the doors we're putting in as our new front doors (and maybe from our bedroom to the garden too) have a very special name. So picture this scene...

I'm saying goodbye to my dad, who's just been over to discuss the costing of our building works (did I mention that my dad is our builder??) as we break ground on Monday (YAY!!!). As he's leaving, he mentions that he's got some doors he took out of another flat we might be able to use. Except, he calls them... happy doors. I kid you not. I thought he was joking! I mean, who calls doors happy doors? But no, the joke was on me. Apparently, we are installing happy doors. Needless to say, I had a bit of hysterical laughter over that one.

So what exactly are happy doors, I hear you ask?THIS is a happy door. And the one below is a Kentucky door. The last image is of a Carolina door. All of these, apparently are french doors. The trad french door is given a very boring name, e.g. 10 lite, or 18 lite, depending on the number of individual square or rectangular panes.
But wait, there's more. Our happy doors also come with parliament hinges. Yup, no ordinary hinges for our happy doors. Nope, they get parliament hinges. What are parliament hinges? They're the hinges that stick out from the door, to enable you to open the doors flush to the outside wall, so they don't stand out at an angle to it.

Don't ever let me hear you refer to french doors again. No-one wants to be an idiot! And when we have our housewarming, I want to hear you refer to the parliament hinges. Yup, we're quite proud of our happy doors with parliament hinges, thank you!