h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From food to clothing, the need to update our world-view goes on.

What does the term 'office casual' denote to you? I used to think it meant, 'what you'd wear to school in Pittsburgh', but then I worked with computer nerds who thought flip-flops were cool footwear. In Charlotte, North Carolina, office workers dress like every day is Sunday - frilly dresses liven the street scene. In frumpy Philadelphia, they have to ban shorts in the office if they want to preserve decorum.

Which might help explain Congress.

Congress has some ancient dress code that prohibits female Congress members from wearing sleeveless dresses. I don't understand the sleeveless dresses business myself, but it used to be a Thing. My mother always wore little capped sleeves in the boiling Memphis summer because of this sleeveless dress business. In the 1960s, conservative colleges such as Beaver College in Pennsylvania (where a female friend went) and Bob Jones University (which is legendary, and not in a good way) banned sleeveless dresses.

I refuse to speculate on the Freudian implications of swooning over sleeveless dresses. So, apparently, do Congresswomen. They've had it. It was 97F yesterday in Washington, D.C., and they staged 'Sleeveless Friday'. They said they had a Constitutional right to bare arms. They pointed out that it was 2017, not 1817. (We know that: they've stopped fighting duels.) They made other bad puns and jocular remarks.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40618356

I think Congress will just give in. Particularly if they give the guys a break, too, and stop making them wear ties and jackets. The man who invented the necktie should have been taken out and shot, anyway. It's the 21st Century, people. Dress sensibly, and honour the memory of George Bernard Shaw.

As long as they don't wear flip-flops.

Hear, hear

By the way I hear socks and sandals is the hottest new trend in men's fashion

Oh well, live and let live

This reminds me of Professor Cohen, my chemistry prof...he also sported a large amount chalk dust on his jacket, which added to the ensemble...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4697218/School-tells-pupils-wearing-Bradley-shirts-home.html

dress sense in respect

Aw.

in his short life, he'd made many friends inc' a top footballer from his local team

Neckties were still practical apparel as long as shirt-collars were items of wearing apparel separate from the shirt, well into the 20th century, neckties used to hold the collar in place.

Collars sewn into shirts began to displace the older separate collars during the 1910s, with some conservative elements still affecting separate shirt collars as late as the 1930s.

Neckties had picked up symbolic significance during their heyday and this perhaps accounts in part for their persistence long after their practicality had ceased..

Qite right too... I mean, if ladies start walking round, with the tops of their arms, bare, on display, just think of the poor men, they'd be over-come with pure animal lust and instinct, rendered dumb-struck at the prevocative site of female flesh on display! - whatever next, ladies with their ankles on display?! *faints*

You almost have to display one or the other--it's almost impossible to find an ankle length dress with sleeves--even when it's not summer. At least around here, in my size (I'm not *that* tall...)

What is a tie but a silken noose?

The necktie, as a symbol of our prostitution to the ruling class, subjecting ourselves to control, and the capitalist state regulating and controling our right to existance, symbolising their hold over our right to live or swing err... or something. maybe...

Once again, 2legs explains the sociological significance of common objects.

yeh... just call me psychiological.... err.... psycho....

We in my house, have a slightly non standard relationship with everyday objects; most have names, I've a loverly laundry basket, she's called 'Whammy', and I bought W a new grocerys shopping bag, in leopard print, and she's called ' 'Poochy' I've a Baby orphan Bee called 'B', a ladybird called DH Lollypop and... so many more besides - the last time I introduced a friend at the pub to Poochy, the friend paniced; thinking we had a dog inside Poochy!

The colender for rinsing draining pasta, is called Coline and Steve is the name of our cooking Hob, the trolly that Steve lives on is called Tracy. Our Iron is of course called Irine

I'm just not like other normal people anymore

Glad someone finds it amusing.... = just imagine how terrible it is living in the confusion of my so-called mind through - if this is being sane I'd hate to be insane...

*Considers the ladybird called DH Lollypop*

This isk, don't forget the ladybird, called DH Lollypop, who I mistook for a lampost, early 2015. that err.... probably doesn't make much sense without explination, therefore I offer no explination as its far more amusing without the explination B is in bed at the moment, in her pretty dress, cuddling a bear, who is, oddly, called bear. we also have a frog called frog, and a rabbit called Jeralidine.. err jeraldine pah, reality.

I remember a previous boss calling the team together for a serious meeting about office wear. He was a Geordie (from Newcastle) so he had an unusual dialect - we were on the South coast.

Anyway, he told us we should all be wearing "dress pants".

We all looked at each other blankly. Did he mean pants under a dress? I figured that was too obvious, and only concerned the ladies in the office anyway. He was definitely making eye contact with the men when he said this.


I later learned that "dress pants" means "tailored trousers".