New Bed Sizes

The International Society for Democracy in the English Language (ISDIEL) recently called for mattress and bed frame makers to abandon the old sizing based on monarchical and aristocratic traditions. Instead of ‘King’, ‘Queen’, ‘Full’, and ‘Single’ or ‘Twin’, ISDIEL proposes standard sizes called ‘1N’, ‘2S’, ‘3W’, and ‘4H’.¹

“Not only is the American practice of calling the smallest size ‘twin’ offensive to twins,” explains Carroll Harris, ISDIEL Chief of International Bed Size Policies, “but the implication that kings are necessarily larger and more important than queens, that larger is always better, and that monarchs should be taken as guides in sleeping arrangements should be offensive to any modern person or non-person.”

Michael M. Finnie, founder and president of The Society for a Fat America called for a protest against the new ISDIEL recommendations: “We absolutely believe that bigger is better. And, even if we are not monarchists ourselves, we cannot but admire the splendid precedent set by more than a few kings and queens. Henry VIII, for example, was more than six feet tall and close to three-hundred pounds in weight. And Queen Victoria, while not tall, was also a shining pattern of monarchical girth. And of course, we will always honor Charles the Fat for his truly magnificent size. Noblesse, as they say oblige.”

Photo of “The Great Bed of Ware,” by Wikipedia Loves Art participant “Opal_Art_Seekers_4.” CC-BY-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.