Where would we be without stories like this?

[stewamax]

So can Trump also command the waves to recede?

Of course. He regards himself as King Cnut, although his spelling on Truth Social leaves a bit to be desired.

[servodude]

So can Trump also command the waves to recede?

Of course. He regards himself as King Cnut, although his spelling on Truth Social leaves a bit to be desired.

There should be an internet law stating that if someone mentions Cnut, without doing so, it is obligitory, for someone else, to post in his defence that (in the apocryphal legend) he was attempting to prove to his courtiers that he could not control the tide.

This does not affect any Trumpian anagrams or mistakes

[kempiejon]

Quite a guy, coming over in a small boat, taking the job of king from a good Anglo-Saxon, didn't even learn the language, moved his foreign wife over and bred; his sons taking the throne of England for a couple of seasons. Grandson of the inventor of Bluetooth.

[UncleEbenezer]

I know we all get this "equality" shoved down out throats at times but heard this young child shouting "mummy look at that bloke in a dress"

Wouldn't that be a regular clerical gentleman?

as a bearded and tashed "gentleman" in a flowery sundress wandered by.

OK, maybe an eccentric chap.

A couple of generations ago, women won the social right[1] to wear trousers and other traditionally-male attire; now that's perfectly normal. What a shame men didn't win the social right to wear dresses at the same time!

[1] Using the phrase "social right" to mean the right to do something without needing a strong personality and thick skin to take the social flak.

[Gerry557]

I know we all get this "equality" shoved down out throats at times but heard this young child shouting "mummy look at that bloke in a dress"

Wouldn't that be a regular clerical gentleman?

as a bearded and tashed "gentleman" in a flowery sundress wandered by.

OK, maybe an eccentric chap.

A couple of generations ago, women won the social right[1] to wear trousers and other traditionally-male attire; now that's perfectly normal. What a shame men didn't win the social right to wear dresses at the same time!

[1] Using the phrase "social right" to mean the right to do something without needing a strong personality and thick skin to take the social flak.

I know of some parents that allow their sons to go to school in hot weather dressed as girls because the dress rules for boys don't cut it when it's hot. So they can't wear shorts, rules is Rules but they can go in short skirts.

You think it would be so much easier to modify the rules than have parents having to get around them and having the school rules ridiculed in the media.

[Harry23]

Well I do have some Scottish ancestry so I'd get away with wearing a kilt I guess. Don't know what the family tartan would be though.

[stewamax]

Pre-WW1, it was commonplace in the poorer rural areas for boys to dress in frocks. They wore their older sisters' cast-offs.
Gordon Winter's 'A Country Camera - 1844-1914' (Country Life Ltd - 1966) has a photo of this taken in Hill Wootton, Warwickshire in 1890. He commented: 'Other little boys in the village suffered the same indignity. but without in fact feeling that it was any great affront to their manhood. The age when you graduated into trousers depended on whether, and when, the family possessed a pair that would fit you'.

Similarly, poor ladies of that time might wear trousers, particularly when working in the fields; hunting ladies might wear breeches under their long side-saddle 'habit' or detachable skirt, but they rarely rode astride until after WW1 - it was just not womanly and might 'overstimulate' young ladies.

[XFool]

I remember, I remember...

Just coming up to my third birthday I was in hospital for an operation. They bathed me, put me in a hospital smock and told me to get into bed.

I was indignamt: "Why am I wearing a dress? Dresses are for girls. I'm a boy!"

Dunno where that gets us...

[NomoneyNohoney]

Didn't the split up the back of your smock worry you?

[XFool]

Didn't the split up the back of your smock worry you?

I think you may be getting confused with a much more recent hospital procedure - and the black paper "modesty pants".

[gryffron]

You forgot 'Ms' - some people are very picky.
I default to 'Ms' in a letter/email when I don't know which one the lady prefers.

I recently learned that Ms is an abbreviation for Mistress. From the days when that was an honorific, not a secret lover.

I shall in future delight in addressing anyone who insists on using Ms as "mistress".

[XFool]

I recently learned that Ms is an abbreviation for Mistress. From the days when that was an honorific, not a secret lover.

I shall in future delight in addressing anyone who insists on using Ms as "mistress".

Not sure you've got that quite right.

'Miss' is surely the traditional abbreviation for 'Mistress' (unmarried woman). Is not 'Ms' ("miz") the 1970s(?) invention of Women's Lib for a title without attributed marital status?

Common titles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics#Common_titles

Ms: (/mɪz/ or /məz/) for women, regardless of marital status or when marital status is unknown.

[Lootman]

You forgot 'Ms' - some people are very picky.
I default to 'Ms' in a letter/email when I don't know which one the lady prefers.

I recently learned that Ms is an abbreviation for Mistress. From the days when that was an honorific, not a secret lover.

I shall in future delight in addressing anyone who insists on using Ms as "mistress".

Isn't an unmarried woman a Spinstress?

[gryffron]

I recently learned that Ms is an abbreviation for Mistress. From the days when that was an honorific, not a secret lover.
I shall in future delight in addressing anyone who insists on using Ms as "mistress".

Not sure you've got that quite right...

Your thinking is far too modern.

In earlier centuries Mm-Madame was usual for upper class married women. Ms-Mistress for single ones.
Mrs was a female equivalent of Mr, and suggested a gentleman/woman. i.e. Middle/upper class person who managed servants, owned property, or ran businesses in their own right. Neither implied marital status.
Lower class women (and men) were not given titles.

Use of Mrs and Miss to universally show married/unmarried only occurred late c19th. Quickly adopted across the whole English speaking world.
e.g. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/mis ... -of-titles

Gryff

[Mike4]

I recently learned that Ms is an abbreviation for Mistress. From the days when that was an honorific, not a secret lover.

I shall in future delight in addressing anyone who insists on using Ms as "mistress".

Isn't an unmarried woman a Spinstress?

A "Spinster", Shirley...

A female solicitor is a solicitrix, or so I'm told by an accountant I once knew.