Tailors

I love words, and I am always amused by the different meanings of a word, especially when they’re slightly out of the way.  So, today’s word is “tailor”.  Yes, it’s a man who makes clothes, originally mainly for men, and now for everybody; but now the word has an upmarket connotation, and few of us have a tailor to design and make our clothes to order (though I have just watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on DVD, Le Carré’s Smiley masterpiece, based on the game for divining your career from plum stones – "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief”).  The tailor is, in folk tales, the man who cuts up the cloth - but in the trade, he's the cutter, and the tailor is the man who stitches them together.

 

But did you know, tailors are also small fish, and a kind of caterpillar?  And:

 

Nine tailors make a man – a contemptuous expression, suggesting that tailors were of such poor physique that nine of them would make a real man.  But also, the nine strokes of the funeral bell that announce the death of a man - "tailor" may be a corruption of "teller", a stroke on a bell.  See, in a a light hearted murder mystery, but one evoking the quiet desolation of the Fens, Dorothy Sayers' Nine Tailors.

 

It’s a tailor’s war – a World War II saying, meaning I know not what.

 

To tailor a shot – to bungle a shot at a bird or a deer, injuring but not killing it (I came across this in John Buchan's John McNab).

 

Any more?

Comments

[glo]

Dear Dark Puss, I am sure you look gorgeous even when you don't wear a tailor-made suit!

[Dark Puss]

Dear Glo, I have two lovely suits made (in an old Hughenot house in London) by a real tailor. So gorgeous, if only I could afford more.

[glo]

Well, I am not the most appropriate and helpful person for more typical English expressions...
Due to the lack of real tailors, you won't find in books the mention of "tailor-made clothes" anymore, but I have already seen the mention "in a designer's suit" in recent novels or articles.
Fish by the way have often funny or puzzling names.
Switching into musical mode, just like our favourite Cat, Taylor is also a very famous brand of guitars - but no, I am not a guitar player. Have you already heard of the story of that Canadian singer who travelled with his guitar? See (and hear) in this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
I am not a big fan of country music... But I hope the rest of us won't be reduced to write a song and perform on the Net next time we happen to have trouble with an airline company...

[Dark Puss]

How about the "thinking person's" hip-hop from the wonderful Wax Tailor? OK I know it's cheating, but just have a listen: http://www.waxtailor.com/