You’ve seen it hundreds, maybe thousands of times: someone’s got full facial hair in between two vertical lines on the face, about 1/4 inch either side of the corners of the mouth, and is clean-shaven outside those lines.
A good for-instance would be the guy with the shaved head in the Basic Instructions comic strip.
This style has been around for at least two decades, and I figure there must be some more-or-less standard term to refer to it by. Anybody know?
You mean a goatee?
I suppose that style of mustache & goatee would be a Van Dyke - wouldn’t it?
No, a goatee is a particular kind of beard. (Wikipedia: “In the traditional taxonomy of facial hair, a goatee is a beard formed by a tuft of hair on the chin.”) You can have a goatee with or without a moustache. The goatee is not a full beard.
In this case, (a) the beard is full, at least between the lines; (b) there’s also a full moustache, (c) they’re connected by facial hair on both sides of the mouth, and (d) the facial hair in (c) ends abruptly at a vertical line maybe 1/4 inch or so outside the corner of the mouth on each side.
I think the term “goatee” is gradually shifting to mean what you’re describing. At least, I’ve always seen that style referred to as a goatee.
Two problems with that:
Due to it’s popularity with a certain social class, we tend to refer to it as a ‘chin-mullet’.
i e Everyone that would have had a mullet in 1990 today has the chin-mullet.
I’d have to go with a Van Dyke then. If we’re going to be using Wikipedia as a definitive source:
Emphasis mine.
Then let me clarify the question: does this particular variant of the Van Dyke beard have a name of its own?
Due to that particular popularity, and the way the facial hair ends abruptly at those vertical lines as if chopped off, I’ve long thought of it as the “redneck chop.” I’ve been looking for a term that people who don’t have access to my thoughts would recognize.
I like the term “chin-mullet.” Is it widely used, or just something that you and some of your friends coined?
Going back to Wikipedia, it is referred to as a genial or moutee.
Again, that’s a broader category that doesn’t specify the vertical chop.
It is definitely kind of funny how fashion works; 10 years ago, if you were in your 20s, you were a definite weirdo if you didn’t have one of those, or some other facial hair. Clean shaven seemed to be out of the ordinary.
Nowadays, those beard/mustache things are associated with rednecks and other fashion roadkill types.
It’s a goatee. That’s what “goatee” means now. Word meanings change.
It’s true that word meanings change, and I’ve always been one for letting them change.
But if this is what ‘goatee’ now means, I’m surprised that Wikipedia is behind the times here. It isn’t like we have to wait 10 years for the next edition.
A little judgmental and insulting for GQ, aren’t you? Style varies from place to place and changes with time. If you wish to be condescending and rude about it, please feel free to open a thread in a different forum.
If you said “goatee” to me I’d think of a small tuft of hair on the chin.
If its meaning has changed, can someone cite a TV clip or something where the new meaning is used?
(I’m not trying to poke holes, I just want to be sure if the popular meaning has changed).
My friends call it:
Possibly NSFW
Pussy mouth.
I’ve just done a bunch of searching, and every reference I can find says that a goatee is a beard sans mustache. When you add a mustache (some say it needs to be connected, some say not) it becomes a Van Dyke – or one site called it a “circle beard.” Here are a few cites (see third from the bottom).
You know you can update Wikipedia yourself, right?
And based on this thread, tonight I’m shaving mine off, whatever it is.