Morning suit v lounge suit

[DJH]

From the good old BBC: http://djh.cc/fqwWZH

 

[Tomasso]

 

[Talbot]

Thanks for the link.

 

[Tomasso]

Here it is.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

off subject I know but Kate looks like the Queen Of Van Diemans Land

Kate

Mary

 

[Tomasso]

I think you may be reaching there, Bink.

Anyway, I hope Kate doesn't lose anymore weight. :eeek:

 

[Lokar]

Of course they mean morning dress rather than a morning suit (/pedant).

 

[adouglasmhor]

Of course they mean morning dress rather than a morning suit (/pedant).

They also describe it as "Top Hat and Tails". Surely that is white tie a morning coat is a cutaway rather than a tailcoat.

 

[AntonAAK]

They also describe it as "Top Hat and Tails". Surely that is white tie a morning coat is a cutaway rather than a tailcoat.

It is very much a tailcoat, on account of having tails. I agree that the term 'top hat and tails' more readily conjures up the sort of white tie image you have posted but it is factually correct for morning dress too.

 

[Lokar]

Yeah, a morning coat is a also tailcoat. The coat worn with white tie can be called a dress coat to differentiate between both varities of tailcoat.

 

[pineconer]

apparently after earlier rumours to the contrary david cameron (the prime minister) is gonna man up and wear morning dress after all. embarrassing it was even considered for the prime minister not too, and even more now he's changed around - on occassions like this, its about dressing correctly, not trying to put on some phony 'down to earth' nonsense by only wearing a lounge suit - a perfect example of the attitude some people have towards dress, and more tellingly, the attitude some people fear others will have....

 

[Salieri]

While morning dress made up of non-matching cloths doesn't conform to the very strictest definition of a suit, it has been commonly referred to as a morning suit since the 1920s. To be perfectly honest I think the very strict distinction between a matching grey morning suit and mixed morning dress is something that's principally sprung up in the last few years from internet forum pedantry. Such a semantic distinction can help to avoid ambiguity in a context where it might cause confusion but surely, if the term didn't suffice linguistically, there would be some other term to satisfactorily describe a morning dress outfit (morning dress being a mass noun and therefore not really suitable).

 

[Lokar]

I've seen plenty of period documents showing that morning suit means the full suit only. I think when wanting a noun you'd just say your morning coat. That's what I end up doing, anyway. It's also not just internet forums that have the distinction - Savile Row use it too. If the distinction is held by them, it's probably worth observing.

 

[Salieri]

Huntsman use the term interchangeably here: http://www.h-huntsman.com/morning-coats/

I'm not just calling you on this, but I would be genuinely interested to know about any period documents that address this matter in the way you describe.I've been doing a little linguistic research because I've read dozens of times on the internet that suit come from the french 'suivre' to follow and that means it has to all be made from the same cloth. I've never been wholly satisfied by this and so, finally bothering to look it up, it actually turns out that it's from Anglo-Norman French 'siwte' from the latin 'sequi'. Literally they do mean to follow but the early meaning in English means 'a set of things to be used together'.

I'm not saying that proves a thing, but it certainly negates any etymological argument that the word suit itself insists on matching cloth.

 

[Lokar]

Oh, I don't buy the French "to follow" either.

I'll dig around my literature (and the cutterandtailor.com stuff - you might be interested there, there's an astounding amount there).

As for Huntsman - yeah, they use morning dress and morning coat. Can't see a mention of morning suit anywhere, though. Am I missing it?

 

[Salieri]

"prices for a three piece suit start at..."

 

[Lokar]

Mm, although they're just using suit to mean trousers+waistcoat+coat, no mention of morning suit (they'd have written "just one or two pieces of your morning suit" instead of "your Morning Dress outfit", surely. It's a much worse sentence with "Morning Dress outfit" so seems pointless unless it's correct.)

Still, I'll get back to you when I can.

 

[Salieri]

Here's a good example of "Morning suit" being applied to seperates.

 

[Lokar]

I've had a look through the texts I've got and haven't really found anything either way. Most references have been just about the coat. However the more I think about it the more I agree with you. It's the same as I said about the stroller/black lounge - outside of eveningwear and at funerals even the Victorians thought all black was wrong - frock coats weren't worn with black trousers either. Obviously you'd not wear a black morning suit so you add the trousers...

Still, in modern terminology (and not just internet forum pedantry) I think a morning suit has come to mean with a non-black coat. The huntsman page seems to confirm - it may be a suit but it's morning dress, not a morning suit.

 

[Salieri]

Still, in modern terminology (and not just internet forum pedantry) I think a morning suit has come to mean with a non-black coat. The huntsman page seems to confirm - it may be a suit but it's morning dress, not a morning suit.

That is true in a sense, and I was being fairly uncharitable about the internet there. It does seem, however, that there's a minority of informed/enthusiastic people for whom a morning suit is a three piece suit of matching grey cloth, and then there's the vast majority of less informed people for whom pretty much all morning dress is a morning suit.

I'm not saying everyone has to like it that way, but it seems a little futile to correct people on it, especially if you happen to think lexicography should be descriptive of, rather than prescriptive of, usage.

EDIT: For the record, however, I was fairly careful to stick with 'morning dress' in our emails to the BBC, so they didn't get it from us. Although, what we sent them and what they quoted us as telling them were not 100% the same anyway. Ah well, journalists...