I think it’s interesting that men are so opposed to the tie!
I mean, could it be more obvious that the only people with the power to change this, are men? I don’t think so. If it’s outlived it’s actual ‘need’, by a hundred years, it’s totally on them.
I’ve always found it amusing when men talk about women as slaves to fashion, when it’s always seemed the reverse to me. After all, you don’t see women still walking around in bustles!
I agree with burying the dead and cemetaries in general. Everytime I see a cemetary i think: “That would make a really great park if not for all the headstones”.
Not the protection of a deity but if someone farts you might say “God damn your smelly ass”.
I don’t think it’s older than the endearing opening of written correspondence, though.
I vaguely remember someone telling me it was one of those inventions of Napoleon’s when he was trying to build his empire. It was adopted to cover the gaps between buttons on a button-down shirt – kind of like a miniature dickey* – for his officers to wear in uniform.
I dunno if that tale is true but, if it is, that would be the early 1800’s and “Dear ___” in writing was around for a long time already.
–G!
*No, not a tiny phallus – you wouldn’t hang that around your neck! One of these!
Is it a fact that left-handed drivers are in fewer accidents?
Just curious.
ETA: Ties are hot. I imagine this antiquated custom won’t die until women stop finding them hot.
China drives on the right, Hong Kong and Macau on the left.
I prefer wearing a tie to having an open-necked shirt. Sometimes the formality is suitable to the environment. I also like a firm handshake, a limp-wristed, half-hearted, disinterested clutch really says a lot about the other person.
nm
This is the first thing I thought of when opening this thread. I HATE it.
Since pantyhose are no longer socially required when a woman wears a skirt, men can ditch the tie as far as I’m concerned.
How about the idea of “resting” on the seventh day? At least it’s a prime number, but I personally wouldn’t mind “resting” every four or five days instead.
For another thing, why three meals a day? If someone likes to eat a meal every hour, or just once a day, they’d be considered quite strange and unusual.
More on that subject, in the “to see ourselves as others see us” department, this Italian site on surnames reveals to its readers the curious customs of those Americans, to wit:
“In the United States it is customary for a woman to change her own surname to her husband’s after marriage and to pass on the father’s surname to the children.”
“In only seven American states is it permitted for a man to replace his own surname with that of his wife without going through a laborious and costly legal process…”
(How many of you knew that? I didn’t. Only musician Jack White of the White Stripes comes to mind.)
The same site has a poll on whether people should be able to choose to name the children with their mother’s surname. A majority of both men and women respondents in Italy supports the idea!
OK, you made me think of my own. I find it peculiar that people are expected to spend 8 solid hours asleep followed by 16 solid hours awake. My body, if not required to show up at work at a specific time, naturally settles into its own pattern of 8 hours awake followed by 4 hours asleep, day and night.
Seems to me the antiquated custom of keeping yourself asleep for 8 hours and awake for 16 is left over from when nights were lit only by fire. With electric lighting (and internet, heh) so widespread in so much of the world now, nothing holds us to the unnatural rhythm of long blocks of uninterrupted sleep and waking except senseless custom.
As for blessing someone when they sneeze, I’ve gotten out of that habit. Early on in Thailand, I asked the Thais what they say when someone sneezes, and they looked at me like I was from Mars. “Why the frig would we say anything?” was the general consensus. Now I let sneezes go unremarked, but some newbie farangs (Westerners) seem to look at me strange. They must think I want them dead.
As for driving on the left, Thailand drives on the left. Cambodia used to drive on the left, but in a bid to cut down on the number of stolen cars being taken into Cambodia from Thailand, the government there decreed a switch to right-side driving. But who can afford to buy a new car in Cambodia? So now you have all these right-hand drive cars plying the right side of the roads. Once we hired a taxi to drive us from Poipet, on the border with Thailand, to Siem Reap, near Angkor Wat. Passing was pretty hairy, I’ll tell ya, especially when we were behind a large vehicle of some sort. The driver would edge over until he was able to see if anything was coming! It was a 2-1/2 ride, and after Sisophon, about halfway, the “highway” was dirt (I think it’s all paved now), so the dust being kicked up made it even harder to see.
First off, I’ma little taken back by the “Dear” thing. I’ve never once had a coworker address me that way in an email.
I can’t remember what I was watching the other day, but there was this guy who was captain of a ship that sank. He was explaining how it all went down, he mentioned that as soon as he realized he wasn’t going to be able to save the ship, he instructed the crew to evacuate the the passengers. He specifically told them “Women and children first!” I was a little surprised by that.
Also, opening doors for women. Especially car doors. It made sense when you needed the key to open the door, but these days with remote access, it doesn’t make sense to do it like that anymore.
The most antiquated? The tie - although it’s fundamental part of many “costumes” we consider important or necessary I still hate them and most situations where a tie is expected.
Shaving - not antiquated - my face feels cleaner and I really notice scratchiness on my collar and in touching my face if I don’t shave about every 24 hours.
NEW ONE! Women shaving - why?? Body hair is not “nasty” and I think unshaven legs are a mild turn-on and maybe a sign of self confidence and independent thought. Or - why not shave their faces? Many women have a bit of visible fuzz if one gets close enough.
If I were driving on the left, then it would be my right elbow that was resting on the door. And since I’m right-handed, it would still be my right hand holding my coffee cup. So driving on the left would make it extremely unlikely that I would have my dominant hand on the wheel.
Before electric lights, it was normal to go to bed around sunset, sleep for a few hours, be awake for two or three hours, and then sleep again until around sunrise (“segmented sleep”). The custom of staying up after dark and then getting all of one’s sleep in one block came after the invention of electric lights.
Counterintuitively not, in almost every country, LWD or RWD, they are involved in more car accidents.
This blogger agrees with you. (mildly NSW)
Ergh… and I thought Tony Abbott’s policies were stupid. :smack: :smack: :smack:
“A few outliers”? The countries that drive on the left include the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th largest countries in the world, by population (i.e., India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan). And two of those are not “former UK peoples” in any way.
Circumcision.
Not necessarily. The Mayo Clinic says