Tartan Day in Balboa Park, San Diego

[jsrnephdoc]

Yup and certainly no one is wearing ties at school. I recall early morning lecture halls with girls coming in wearing their pajama bottoms, ugg boots, and Starbucks coffee. Maybe an SDSU hoodie if it was chilly out.

This was also 13 years ago so I can’t imagine it’s got any better. Some of that may be Southern Californian informality.

It's not just SoCal. It's the entire US. I don't think I can blame it on the internet or Social Media, but informality (even aggressive informality) is almost a TRADITION (if we really have any) in the US. The very fact that one of America's oldest and most respected Ivy League universities doesn't even BOTHER to sell "school ties" (but did, decade ago) testifies to that.

But I'll add another illustration, relevant to your neck of the woods. Early in my career as a practicing nephrologist, I attended the annual scientific meetings of the American Society of Nephrology (a fairly stodgy group of intellectuals with the liberal political leanings typically concentrated in academic institutions). At the time, I possessed limited financial resources, so I'd stay at my mom's brother's house in the hills just east of the city rather than at the Convention Center hotel. He'd let me borrow his "extra" car for my drive into the Convention Center, a source of embarrassment for me because the car was a placard for stickers bearing messages such as "Don't Steal—The Government HATES competition."

I should add that it's not ALWAYS been this way in the US. I remember my own primary and secondary school years, when chewing gum in class would trigger a trip to the Principal's office, as would the (rarely necessary) trip to the same office for a young girl, precipitated by questions regarding her modesty, tested by having her kneel in that office to make certain that the bottom of her skirt reached the floor. And it goes without saying that back then NO girl could ever wear slacks to school.

2/3 of a century later, the only people WORRYING about hemlines are US, wondering how to keep the bottoms of our kilts in the proper precise relationship to our kneecaps and hose-tops!