I still internally laugh at men who use umbrellas.
Why?
Because anoraks are the height of sartorial elegance.
The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
61–70 of 152 posts
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#62Those of us who live in Seattle tend to feel the same way. If you see someone carrying an umbrella here you can bet they're a tourist.
Pretty similar in Vancouver too, although I'd say "from Eastern Canada" rather than "tourist" -- the main tourism season is in the drier months.
I never noticed any such thing in Vancouver. When it rained, we carried umbrellas. Unless you forgot, in which case you're gonna get soaked. Maybe that was only in east van?
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#63"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every…
I love listening to the English butcher (assimilate?) loanwords. Sure, other English-speaking peoples do as well, but the English in particular do it with gusto. Even McDonalds gets 'filet' mostly right.
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#64"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…
Reminds me of my chemistry professor who spent time teaching in Japan. He didn't carry a brolly, much to the surprise of local residents, who would ask him "what do you do when it rains?". Answer: "i get wet".
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#65In medium wind, the most practical umbrella is the clear plastic dome-shaped kind that you can hold in front of your face but still see through. Maybe there will be a new Jonas Hanway who pioneers men carrying this style of umbrella.
I used to think that men wore whatever was practical and only women were bound by fashion. This may be true of shoes, but this style of umbrella revealed to me that it isn't true in general. Men (including myself) will eschew practicality for our own fashion. I'll keep carrying my impractical black umbrella for now.
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make m…
> sounds be as close as possible to the actual letters used in the word So you'd pronounce "ghoti" as "fish" then?
Well, this got downvoted into the ground by people who aren't familiar with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti
The point is that the "letters used in the word" are a really bad guide to pronunciation of English. They're not consistent across words or the place of the letter within the word. It's just consistent enough to make people think that might be the case.
Then you get placenames like "Loughborough", "Worcester", "Bicester", "Cholmondeley", and "Slough".
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#67"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…
This was alive and well in my small Caribbean country.
When I went to secondary school I would rather get soaked than to ever carry something as "girly" as an umbrella.
Most of my classmates felt the same way. It wasn't something limited to only secondary school boys but also younger males.
I have long since matured past that and it seems like within the past decade things have changed a bit here
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Dublin, I think it's considered, if not rude, at least not the height of courtesy, to use an umbrella in dense areas where you will be bumping in to people and essentially pushing your water on to them. However, my feeling is that the real lunacy here is having very narrow pavements (sidewalks) carrying dozens or hundreds of people while having streets, which might be carrying ten or twenty people along the same s…
Hah, yes! Theres nothing more annoying than someone sauntering along with their umbrella held low in a crowd. They rarely even apologise after smacking you somewhere with it. ;)
as a tall person walking around in NYC during the rain can be somewhat dangerous. Thankfully I wear glasses so there's one level of protection but people are generally selfish and self-absorbed. They'd rather keep their umbrella low and not get a few drops of rain on them rather than avoid hitting your face.
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#69"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…
>> "I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains." Weird, I'm always surprised at how almost every seems to have an umbrella ready to use in London.
Yeah, working in central London and there's always an abundance of umbrellas in use when it rains, really not sure what this commenter is talking about.
Re: The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
#70"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers…
This just isn't true, I work in central London amongst the bankers and they're usually the first to get out a bank branded umbrella, usually obnoxiously huge ones too.