Shirts...collars...'bones'...???

[Doubleclick]

Hey all, your Scottish bussy here again.

I'm at my buddies place right now and we are getting ready for a Christmas parts...well...him being an 'army' dude...he knows who to 'press' a shirt.

While he was pressing mine...we started talking about the stiff plastic pieces in the collar of the shirt.

He called them 'stays', while I was taught they were called 'bones'. Now..I, as you should know by now, am Scottish, and there are a few things that are different between us and North Americans.

When I refered to these things as 'bones' he said that we Scots may have called them this is because they were originaly made of whale bones...as were women corsets all those many years ago.

My question, (sorry for the preamble..) is why are the 'stiff' things in collars called 'bones'? Is there a connection with the whale bone 'thingy'???

[Doubleclick]

Originally posted by Doubleclick
Hey all, your Scottish bussy here again.

I'm at my buddies place right now and we are getting ready for a Christmas parts...well...him being an 'army' dude...he knows who to 'press' a shirt.

While he was pressing mine...we started talking about the stiff plastic pieces in the collar of the shirt.

He called them 'stays', while I was taught they were called 'bones'. Now..I, as you should know by now, am Scottish, and there are a few things that are different between us and North Americans.

When I refered to these things as 'bones' he said that we Scots may have called them this is because they were originaly made of whale bones...as were women corsets all those many years ago.


Sorry for the type-o's...we started our Christmas party early. :D
My question, (sorry for the preamble..) is why are the 'stiff' things in collars called 'bones'? Is there a connection with the whale bone 'thingy'???

[Stockwell_Day]

I don't know about the collars but corsets were
indeed made of whale bones or cartilage or something
like that. Perhaps that IS where the name came from.

[jayjay]

Women's corsets were made with the "whalebone" of baleen whales (blue, right, humpback, etc.). These aren't real bone. They're ribs of cartilage in the mouth that the whales use to strain out the water while keeping the krill in.

They were called both "stays" and "bones" in the corset, and I assume that the names were transferred to men's clothing that was made from the same material.

Whalebone stopped being used for collars when celluloid, which was stiff and light (and cheap) enough to replace it, was introduced.

[TomH]

I'm English and I've always called them "stays". There is something called a collarbone, but it's quite different.

[Chas.E]

TomH is right, they are "collar stays." I recently needed to purchase some extra stays and I couldn't find them anywhere, someone suggested I look at a fabric & sewing supplies store and they were right. Bought a pack of 50 misc stays for about $2 and they came in plenty of sizes.
I saw a set of gold-plated brass collar stays in a Neiman-Marcus catalog, but since they come in one size, and surely are very heavy and rigid, I don't see how they'd be a suitable replacement for a plastic stay.