Being a gentleman is not a matter of economic status. Money can’t buy you class. What it is, first and foremost, is taking pride in your appearance, and presenting an image to others as someone who cares - cares about looking as sharp as they can, cares about being honest and well-spoken, and cares about being taken seriously. In other words, it’s the opposite of a “slob.”
A gentleman dresses up for a formal occasion. He shines his shoes even if the shoes cost 20 dollars.
And let’s not forget our brave boys and girls at the front.
As General Melchett once said:* “no use winning the war over here only to go home to Blighty and find everyone wearing overalls and breaking wind in the palaces of the mighty”.*
Think of the troops!
Hell, even if he dumpster dove for those shoes… You may be poor, but you can be clean and neat in appearance. It’s not about money at all–it’s about personal pride and wanting to make others comfortable. Thinking about others more than about oneself. A radical concept in this day and age.
Correction to my above post: no one wears formal wear to a funeral in America, that I know of. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, though.
The substance of “gentleman” was rejected long ago. The superficial trappings of “gentleman” are just taking longer to die out, but they are fading.
A gilded cage. A competent person hobbled by the thick application of flattery and the pretense of status.
I’m not the one lamenting the loss of the social power to bend all society to one’s own clothing preferences. I see the casual-ification of society and the discarding of arbitrary and superficial “standards” as something to be celebrated. I’m not bitter; I’m jubilant.
I’m not the one lamenting the loss of “gentlemen,” so I don’t think I harbor as many antiquated notions as people who are.
Of course. The difference is that non-gentlemen must fear the application of the law and other social punishments. Gentlemen could get away with it, so long as it was not another gentleman who was the victim.
Nae True Scotsman puts sugar in his oats. And No True Christian has ever committed wrong.
You’re the one who said that someone who could not meet the standard for dress should stay at home. Either the clean collar (or whatever – it’s arbitrary anyway) meets that standard or doesn’t.
This sentence doesn’t actually make any sense to me. But in point of fact, I’m not exercised about anything. So far as I can tell, things are going my way:
Progress is sometimes slow, but it all seems to be coming up roses.
Which hurts me not at all. Indeed, you have drawn a negative conclusion regarding my character based solely on the fact that I have stated the opinion that the concept of a “gentleman” and its remaining superficial trappings is best left in the dustbin of cultural history. (And I don’t think I have actualy stated what I think anyone should wear or what I would wear in any particular circumstance.) That says a lot more about you than it does me.
Who’s being stridently offensive? I’m not the one insisting that the world comport with my preferences.
I must congratulate you. It seems you have found a way of getting around the bar on personal insults in this forum.
And either I’m not as young as you seem to think or you’re a lot older than I assumed.
I don’t really care about this argument but the quote above is so awesome it hurts. 
Actually, I think you are. If you are invited to a “dressy” event, such as a company awards banquet, a wedding, a cotillion, whatever, it sounds as if you should be able to wear jeans and a t-shirt if you prefer to, and to hell with what others expect.
and wrong too!
No, I am simply celebrating the observation that more and more people do not feel obligated to follow such conventions and more and more of their fellow event-attenders do not care whether there are people present who choose not to comport with such superficialities. Expectations are changing. That’s a societal change and it’s not any claim of special privilege on my part.
Read carefully what I wrote and then look at the third photograph displayed in the Snopes article.