The answer to a UK crossword clue I saw recently hinged on the different words used for that band of cloth a man places under his shirt collar and ties in a knot at the front…
Yes: a tie. But apparently in America (according to Chambers) it is referred to as a “necktie.”
The clue suggested that the term “old school necktie” would be used in America whereas in the UK we would refer to “the old school tie.”
Old School Tie is an English expression, initially describing the
system of mutual assistance attributed to former pupils of British
public schools, later expanded to denote narrow clannish attitudes
characteristic of the members of a clique.
Brit. a distinctive tie that indicates which school the wearer attended.
the attitudes, loyalties, values, etc., associated with British public schools.
This question is to American readers of this forum. Is the expression “old school necktie” used in the States and if so does it mean much the same as the two definitions given above?
I’ve heard the American term, “Ivy League” but I don’t think it conveys the same shades of meaning as does (in the UK) “the old school tie.”
In the U.S., both “tie” and “necktie” are used. “Old school tie” is used rarely, but it seems to have the same the same meaning as in GB.
And I have never heard the phrase “old school necktie.” I think the British phrase is used because it was taken wholesale and not coined in the U.S. Plus it also has the metaphorical meaning of “tie=connection”.
Border - I’ve never heard the term “school tie” used to refer to any social bonds. If the term “the old school tie” were to be used in common speech, I believe most Americans would take it to mean a reference to a necktie. Fact is, we don’t have many schools here where neckties are part of the uniform. But “the old school necktie” would ONLY mean cravat - not bond. As to Ivy League, while I can’t comment on the derivation of that particular term, I can tell you that in the US, many schools belong to loose confederations called “leagues.” They usually involve 8-10 schools (The Big Ten, in fact, now contains eleven!), and they play together, compete together, and often have other types of alliances, all pretty much informal. The Ivy League is one of those leagues. As it turns out, that particular league is made of some of the finest, most expensive, exclusive universities in the country - Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, etc. There are definitely connotations connected to Ivy League, but they pertain to that set of schools and their style only. It’s not a generic term as “the old school tie” seems to be in your OP.
“Ivy league” was on common usage well before it was a football league. Perhaps its membership was not as closely defined. It referred to the old northeastern private universities that had been established before (or in at least one case, somewhat after) 1800. I have seen nearly all of them and they are indeed covered with ivy and I have always assumed that that was where the name came from. In contrast with the red brick of the Johnny-come-latelies that started getting founded after the Civil War and especially the land-grant universities that admitted non-aristocrats. Sometime in the early 1950s eight of these institutions got together and created a football league that was supposed to (and to some extent did) avoid the gross commercialism that afflicts the major schools. I don’t know why the Big10 and other leagues don’t just go out and buy a team and end the silly pretense that they are amateurs and students.
The last time I heard the phrase “Old school tie” (never necktie and that word is not that commonly used for ties anyway) it was used by an idiot giving a graduation speech and he definitely used to mean both the necktie and the tie between the graduate and the school.