I couldn't tell a Half-Windsor from an old windsurfer, even with a program. As a kid I wore clip on ties, then as an adolescent we pretty much stopped going to church, at that time my only reason for having to wear a tie at all. For the rare funerals and weddings dear old mom would tie my tie and then transfer it over to me. By the time I reached college I had absolutely no reason to wear a tie so did not, as a matter of fact I did not even own a tie or sportcoat. Near the end of college when I started to interview I bought a second hand poorly fitting Harris Tweed (first time I had ever heard of that and did not even know what itmeant) sportcoat, a single blue tie, and one good shirt (at least by JCPenney standards) and did my med school interviews in those, or sometimes traded to sportcoat for a v-neck sweater. I had to teach myself how to tie my own knot for the necktie, a method I still use today which yields a nice tight but well formed knot. I could not tell you what kind of knot it is or even if it has a name but it works for me. After getting into med school ties became a gradually increasingly required/expected part of the "uniform" of a doctor and for 20 years I wore one nearly every day except sometimes in winter when I would wear a turtleneck. With the change toward casual wear in medicine lately I am back to golf shits, turtlenecks, and the occasional tie and sportcoat for meetings, etc.., but I still use my own self-taught method to tie a tie, and in 30 years have never heard a complaint.

As I am 6'5" I need xl ties when I wear p@nts, and even then sometimes have trouble tucking the short tail into the label on the back of the front part of the tie body, so I use a tie chain to keep mine out of "the soup" and generally in place. Not particularly fond of ties---might be a throwback to the 60's anti-establishment movement I grew up in, might be due to my rebellious nature in general, might be due to the fact that they are expensive, uncomfortable and get destroyed so easily (I work in a velcro closed apron that absolutely eats silk ties for breakfast). I much prefer the open collared look, and since I work with kids every day a tie is one less scary thing for them to be worried about in my countenence.