"Bash." Not a hatter's term?

[dr greg]

strewth

What a bunch of drongos. I'm going to keep saying "bash" because it's a fair dinkum, bonza word for it.

Mate I'm as Aussie as Billy Tea and I say BLOCK, a bash is a social gathering....well in QLD anyway

 

[carter]

Mate I'm as Aussie as Billy Tea and I say BLOCK, a bash is a social gathering....well in QLD anyway

To extrapolate... Would that mean that a social gathering/bash at which the participants discussed/practiced putting various creases in their hats would be known as a Block Party?

 

[CRH]

Doesn't matter what you call it as long as when all the squeezing, pushing, popping, pinching, poking, etc. is finally good enough a Brit could walk walk by and say, "Just smashing there Old Man!"

 

[suitedcboy]

I say we ask Jimmy The Lid what the term should be. He seems to be THE MAN when it comes to that.

 

[CRH]

To extrapolate... Would that mean that a social gathering/bash at which the participants discussed/practiced putting various creases in their hats would be known as a Block Party?

Where? When? I'll bet they will all turn out just smashing :eusa_clap.

 

[carter]

Where? When? I'll bet they will all turn out just smashing :eusa_clap.

And the wearers will all look just dashing!

 

[elvisroe]

Bush Bashing

Not entirely sure of the origin but I'll give it a bash!

The term "Bash" has certainly been used in Oz to describe the shape of your hat for a while and, as was suggested earlier, was common in the Australian army. After reading this thread a while ago I asked an old WW2 digger how he'd describe the shape of a hat and he replied without pause "...you mean the bash?"

I forgot about it until this discussion resurfaced this week so I mentioned it among a group of journalists at work today (yes it was a pretty slow day, and yes they now think I'm a freak!) But a couple of older guys who've done national service knew what i was on about and reckon the "bash of your hat" would be scrutinised on parade and a non-regulation bash could land you in trouble with the WO.

Until at least the 60s the slouch hats were issued with an open crown and it was up the recruits to give it the correct "bash"...or at least correct enough to pass muster while still having a unique touch. Apparently a pin through the crown to hold the "peaks" of the dent together was a favourite trick.

One bloke remembered the bash of school hats being discussed at catholic school in Queensland in the late 40s and said a "cheeky bash" could land you a detention. (So there you go Dr Greg it seems the term was once used by canetoads!)

 

[dr greg]

The dim dark

Well I went to a catholic school in Qld, in 1961, and I remember bashing as what you got from the priests and nuns for very little provocation at all, especially if our hats weren't BLOCKED correctly...lol
As I might have stated before, the PENCIL BLOCK being the most favoured by the larrikin element in the older grades we aspired to emulate.....

 

[scotrace]

This is being thrown around again. So bump.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Looks like this hatted chap was planning a special anniversary creasing of the famed lid:

But it looks the same to me.

 

[John in Covina]

THe English language changes whether you want it to or not. As such words come into use and then leave, occassionally some are ressurected. Bash is a fine word for hand creasing a fedora or other furfelt hats.

It's direct and intentional but in what way is it incorrect to use? Bash may represent some party or and act of violence as to bash someones head in, but here it seems to speak of a violent act on an open crown hat that like a lot of artwork the steps to get there may frighten and confuse but the end result is a thing of beauty. It suggests handiwork not a common one size fits all style block for the crease.

Hand bashed to your own style. Bashing is individual freedom in the great American tradition and even if started as a term by our Australian cousins, they share many of our values of an independant self-starter with inginuity and fortitude not the usual crowd chaser.

Hand Bashers unite under a banner of freedom and individuality!

 

[CRH]

THe English language changes whether you want it to or not. As such words come into use and then leave, occassionally some are ressurected. Bash is a fine word for hand creasing a fedora or other furfelt hats.

It's direct and intentional but in what way is it incorrect to use? Bash may represent some party or and act of violence as to bash someones head in, but here it seems to speak of a violent act on an open crown hat that like a lot of artwork the steps to get there may frighten and confuse but the end result is a thing of beauty. It suggests handiwork not a common one size fits all style block for the crease.

Hand bashed to your own style. Bashing is individual freedom in the great American tradition and even if started as a term by our Australian cousins, they share many of our values of an independant self-starter with inginuity and fortitude not the usual crowd chaser.

Hand Bashers unite under a banner of freedom and individuality!

Thanks, John. Well said!

 

[Lefty]

Bash is awful. Rugged as it may sound, most of us don't bash our hats. Crease doesn't really describe it either. Shape seems to be the most accurately descriptive term.

Here's how Young's started marketing their shaping service in '42.

 

[Richard Warren]

Bash, pinch, style, crease, dent-I believe all were in use all in use long before the Lounge, and not just in Australia.

To me a crease is mostly what you do to a cowboy hat.

A pinch is what you do to a fedora with a pinched form.

A bash is what William Powell did to his big white hat after it got knocked off his head.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Take a look at Tom Mix's hat and tell me he didn't bash it!

The term 'bash' has certainly been used by the Aussie military ever since they started wearing the slouch hat over 100 years ago. On the battlefield giving that famous lid a bash sounded much more appropriate than administering a crease.

But seriously folks, John is right, our language is never static and as much as this frustrates the purists, none of us would want to be speaking the same way the Elizabethans did, or even as James Cagney did. Call it a bash, or a crease, or a block or whatever. We know what you mean - and that's what matters.

 

[Boodles]

And to go on with the Tom Mix example...

Take a look at Tom Mix's hat and tell me he didn't bash it!

Have a gander at those SASS shoot 'em up guys. Some wear a ten gallon hat shaped a bit like a Tom Mix in the front with a big dent in the aft of the crown that many call a "mule kick." Finger blocking? Then there's the FDR hat. It looks as if my grandson had been using it for a football. Finger blocking? On the opposite hand there is the artwork done by Mr. Lid (JtL). That folks must be the pinnacle of finger blocking.

Who knows the origin of the of the term bash? Much like the phrase "Tight as Dick's hatband", origin unknown, I know not from whence it came but I'm comfortable speaking it.

Imagine the day, as shown in the ad kind Mr Lefty posted for us, when you could walk into a shop uptown and try on a hat looking for something that fits your face then have someone's skilled fingers mold a serviceable block so you could walk out the door with the new hat on your head. There you are walking down the sidewalk, and trying not to be seen looking at your reflection in the windows, admiring how you look in your new Stetson. You are saying to yourself, without moving your lips, "We bad, we bad." That, Mr Lefty, must have been finger blocking.

 

[Lefty]

Have a gander at those SASS shoot 'em up guys. Some wear a ten gallon hat shaped a bit like a Tom Mix in the front with a big dent in the aft of the crown that many call a "mule kick." Finger blocking?

The guys who spend hundreds of hours and countless thousands of dollars perfecting their look? I don't think that "bash" is done with the careless abandon they might want to project. I'd liken it to "distressed" furniture or clothing. The holes in the jeans weren't formed with wear. Someone paid an awful lot of money for those well placed holes.

 

[scotrace]

Bump Again.. *sigh*

 

[theinterchange]

On the battlefield giving that famous lid a bash sounded much more appropriate than administering a crease.

Administering a crease sounds medical.

I call it bashing most of the time, but can appreciate the incorrectness of this term. I learned it on COW, but never come across it "out there" so I knew it to be some sort of new slang.

To me, styling sounds best... but will use it interchangeably with bash.

Randy

 

[GallatinHatMan]

I'd not noticed this thread before and, frankly, am surprised I read it all the way through. I don't use the term myself, and don't know its origin, but I do not that "bash" is an alternate word meaning indentation or dent. I had always assumed that was its origins in hat talk.