Sunday 26 October 2008

Spelling problems and collar studs

It’s funny how some words prove blind spots for the above average speller. I always struggled with the word “Recommend” despite the fact that for decades I wrote it almost daily at the end of every report I wrote. Accommodation (which I spelled as accomodation in the draft of this posting) is another. I hate having to write yacht. I have to mentally pronounce it yacht before writing it. Then there are certain medical ones that cause me problems like haemorrhage and diarrhoea, A lot of other people struggle with necessary, eczema, separate, and – if they ever have cause to write it – Mississippi. An excellent book - ‘i before (except after c)’ by Judy Parkinson - gives mnemonics for all these. Accommodation, for example, has Comfortable Chairs Or Modern Mats.


The way I learned to spell “necessary” as a child (one Collar and two Studs) has now been replaced with One Collar and two Sleeves. I suppose detachable collars and collar studs are a completely unknown quantity to younger folk.


Realising the above made my thoughts ramble down some of the other men’s dress items that we don’t see nowadays. I went to Bryony and Mark’s wedding with a few spare pairs of cufflinks in case they were not provided with the hired shirts (they were, of course), but who else has, or uses cufflinks nowadays. And how often do you see tie-clips in use?


Bracers (or braces) for trousers and suspenders for socks seem laughable nowadays but it’s not that long since many of us wore them. And armbands were extremely useful when sleeve fashions were longer and wide cuffs caused by cufflinks were in vogue.


Do you remember the collar stiffeners getting lost or broken in the wash and spare ones having to be found?

All these items can be obtained from a super site I found when looking for a picture of a detachable collar to show my younger readers. It is the Vintage Shirt Company (Men’s shirts and accessories from 1800 to the present day).
 

3 comments:

  1. Loved this one. In fact I think I'm going to do a blog posting in reply instead of a comment - which would be too long.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting to read. I came across another online site selling such traditional Gentlemans items.. www.Fogeyunlimited.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great article! Glad to see that others enjoy learning about traditional dress accessories also.

    I am a very satisfied customer of vintageshirt.co.uk. Their shirts are well made at very reasonable cost and are an excellent value. They have their own Vintage Shirt Company label. I think the shirts are custom manufactured for Vintage Shirt and are available nowhere else.

    Other items I bought from Vintage Shirt such as armbands, collars, ties, are also an excellent value. Customer service is outstanding. They answered all of my questions very promptly by e-mail. Payment is very convenient especially when done through PayPal. Shipping to the U.S is quick and far more reasonable that most of the other shops I have found.

    By the way I have dealt with another of the gentlemen who left a comment. He is the owner of the web site he is promoting. He has good products and service but his prices are sometimes much higher than Vintage Shirt.

    ReplyDelete

Hello - thanks for dropping by to leave a comment. Your comments are much appreciated even if I don't always reply. They will appear as soon as they have been moderated.

Blog Archive