Cheap formal wear?

[DWFII]

Quite so. But I suspect successive generations - touched with a bit of cynicism - always believe standards are falling. I see it in my profession (whether it's real or not).

Offering encouragement to a child means the parent may not tell them right off that their finger painting is unremarkable. As you point out, you'll eventually have to be honest and communicate a standard if the artist is to advance. The standard, of course, is what we'll be discussing for a long time to come . . .

Abax

Not to get too far afield but I believe standards are falling. Techniques get lost, forgotten, or, in an excess of expediency, abandoned. And as they are lost the standards become ever more homogenized and marginalized.

I'm old fashioned, I admit it, but for me I would much rather aspire to do better than self-righteously defend what I know to be sub-par.

I was thinking about this whole business of waiters jackets and so forth after my last post and musing about why we wear kilts...

Someone on this forum (maybe several someones) posted a spirited defense of wearing kilts when many of us are neither Scots nor recently descended from Scots. The gist of it was that it is a way to honour our heritage, and by implication, although we may do it badly, it is a sign of respect.

I wonder whether one would feel comfortable wearing a cut-down waiters jacket to a audience with a clan chieftain? Or the fellow...Lord something or other...that approves tartans and all things Scottish?

More, I wonder if that Chieftain would feel that his customs and traditions...and maybe even person...were being respected if he knew the provenance of the jacket?

If there is a sizable number of native Scots who feel nothing but disdain for tourists gone all ga-ga over Scottish kitsch, they may well have a good reason when confronted by folks who feel it doesn't matter. Because even if, in the cosmic scheme of things, it really doesn't matter, it seems to me (personal opinion), nevertheless, a little disrespectful. And I'm not a native Scots.