The following article by Chris Tribble discusses the uses of the words house and home in the Guardian Weekly recently.

A house is seldom a home

"House prices have tumbled. No, they're still spiralling upwards. Or else they're nervously stuck in neutral." That was how the Guardian reported the confusion of British house-price statistics last month.

In these turbulent economic times more and more people are keeping a wary eye on the value of their "bricks and mortar". But is a house and home simply an investment?

If we take a look at a house, it would seem not. When house is used as a noun-modifier in the Guardian Weekly corpus the strongest collocate is arrest - with twice as many occurrences than house prices. This is closely followed by spokesman, officials and speaker.

Cash value isn't the only quality that is apparent when we look more closely at the kinds of house that are reported in this paper. First house has little to do with the place normal people live in - White, opera, Upper, Lower, Random (the publishers), safe (as in espionage) and country are the strongest left collocates. The other unexpected thing is that his house occurs twice as many times as her house.

So, if a house is most likely to belong to a man and be the place where you spend time in confinement (or discussing legislation), what is a home? Once again, most of the occasions when home is used in the Guardian Weekly have nothing to do with normal people. They relate instead to Britain's Home Office and home secretary, the department and minister responsible for police and security.

You have to go far down the lists before you get to something resembling ordinary life. The corpus confirms that you return or come to your home town or country, support your home team with your home crowd, and buy home grown food. However, once again, more men seem to have a home than women (his home: 816 instances over 10 years, her home only 307).

Given that houses can be prisons or debating chambers, and that their value is uncertain, are they likely to be the best investment for a woman who values her peace and quiet as well as her freedom? It's not a safe bet.