Rant: meaning of the word "blazer"

[Metlin]

Originally Posted by retozimmermann

I vote for calling everything just "piece of clothing" Why be precise when you can be so wonderfully vague.

I vote for a WAYWRN thread where everyone wears a 'piece of clothing' and have tPF reciprocate.

I'm sure Spoo can arrange something.

 

[kungapa]

Originally Posted by viator

Thanks, but I agree with kungapa - I just can't see how it matters. What would the situation where confusion over this term causes inconvenience or harm?
Oh, I am not saying that it doesn't matter. I am all for lingual specificity. Maybe I am the defeatist here - I believe that in common use the need for that level of distinction is no longer there outside of certain subcultures (SF being one of them).

Originally Posted by zimmerman

I vote for calling everything just "piece of clothing" Why be precise when you can be so wonderfully vague
The slippery slope does not an argument make...

 

[1969]

I enjoy wearing my blazer with a button up.

 

[acridsheep]

I'm glad somebody said it, nothing stokes the embers of my acerbicness quite like mens fashion terminology!

 

[Dewey]

Good thread.

What burns me is when people call their luncheon "lunch." So much baby talk from the mouths of "men" these days.

 

[The Louche]

Originally Posted by Geezer

Sorry, this has been really bugging me.

A "blazer" is a particular type of odd jacket. There are three basic types:

(a) a single-breasted odd jacket of bright colour, usually striped, often with metal buttons, derived from the late 19th Century odd jackets worn by English school, college, or university rowing and other sports clubs, now largely obsolescent outside Henley Regatta;

(b) a double-breasted odd jacket of dark navy cloth, with metal - usually brass - buttons, emerging in the late 19th Century as casual wear, and based on naval uniform, allegedly the uniform worn on HMS Blazer;

(c) a slightly later hybrid of the two: a single-breasted odd jacket, usually navy (sometimes green, or burgundy, respectively for golfers and the colour-blind or tasteless), usually with metal buttons. See also "school blazer", which is an (a)/(c) hybrid for children.

It is on SF acceptable to replace metal buttons with mother of pearl ones, while the garment remains a blazer. Traditionally, a club/school/college/regiment woven badge might also be sewn on the left breast pocket, though this has largely fallen into disuse.

At some point in the last decade or so, a bunch of twerps with square glasses and bad haircuts employed in marketing and advertising decided, whether through intensive focus groups or in a moment fuellled by Chablis and cocaine, that "blazer" sounded cool, whereas "jacket"", "odd jacket", "sports jacket" or "sports coat" did not. So every odd jacket is now advertised as a "blazer". But they are not blazers. No matter what it says on the seller's website, or what the salesthing says in the shop, any jacket not meeting the categories above is NOT a blazer. It is a jacket, odd jacket, sports jacket, or sports coat.

Rant mode off.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[The Louche]

Originally Posted by Will C.

Fair question. I think the answer is that category (c) in the OP's definitions covers a species of jacket that is still culturally and historically related to the blazer proper. In this case it's not just an evolving term; the evolving term signifies a garment that is itself evolved from the garment originally signified. In contrast, when silly people start calling tweed sportcoats and orphaned suit jackets 'blazers', our sartorial taxonomy is dilluted into an unmeaningful mush. The question is not whether terms and their usages are allowed to evolve; the question is whether the vocabulary's capacity to express interesting distinctions is being improved or being weakened by these shifting usages.

Elegantly stated.

 

[Rbrt_Hopper]

Originally Posted by Geezer

Sorry, this has been really bugging me.

A "blazer" is a particular type of odd jacket. There are three basic types:

(a) a single-breasted odd jacket of bright colour, usually striped, often with metal buttons, derived from the late 19th Century odd jackets worn by English school, college, or university rowing and other sports clubs, now largely obsolescent outside Henley Regatta;

(b) a double-breasted odd jacket of dark navy cloth, with metal - usually brass - buttons, emerging in the late 19th Century as casual wear, and based on naval uniform, allegedly the uniform worn on HMS Blazer;

(c) a slightly later hybrid of the two: a single-breasted odd jacket, usually navy (sometimes green, or burgundy, respectively for golfers and the colour-blind or tasteless), usually with metal buttons. See also "school blazer", which is an (a)/(c) hybrid for children.

It is on SF acceptable to replace metal buttons with mother of pearl ones, while the garment remains a blazer. Traditionally, a club/school/college/regiment woven badge might also be sewn on the left breast pocket, though this has largely fallen into disuse.

At some point in the last decade or so, a bunch of twerps with square glasses and bad haircuts employed in marketing and advertising decided, whether through intensive focus groups or in a moment fuellled by Chablis and cocaine, that "blazer" sounded cool, whereas "jacket"", "odd jacket", "sports jacket" or "sports coat" did not. So every odd jacket is now advertised as a "blazer". But they are not blazers. No matter what it says on the seller's website, or what the salesthing says in the shop, any jacket not meeting the categories above is NOT a blazer. It is a jacket, odd jacket, sports jacket, or sports coat.

What you are calling a jacket is really a coat.

 

[The Louche]

Originally Posted by Rbrt_Hopper

What you are calling a jacket is really a coat.

I have heard that proper SR terminology is "coat" as well. What, then, is the proper general term for outerwear?

 

[gort]

All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

 

[Rbrt_Hopper]

Originally Posted by The Louche

I have heard that proper SR terminology is "coat" as well. What, then, is the proper general term for outerwear?
There are various kinds. One is an overcoat.

 

[cncrd]

Someone needs to find more important things to rant about.

 

[J. Cogburn]

I'll be even more strictly precise than the OP. A single breasted blue coat (c) - metal button are not - is NOT a blazer. It is simply a blue coat. A blazer is either (a) or (b).

If we allow this sort of rhetorical sloppiness to continue, we might as well have stayed up in the trees flinging our own feces at one another.

 

[chorse123]

I think the horse is out of the barn on this one.

 

[Pieceofsand]

I still don't understand the difference after OP's rant.