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The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User
- dangravell 10y agoAs a former pedestrian commuter through the City, I'd love to see the goons who think a golf umbrella makes a suitable and sociable rainscreen pelted with fruit. I almost considered setting up a Tumblr of ridiculously oversized umbrellas at one point, knocking people off pavements.
- smcl 10y agoI'm with you - I'm tall enough that the little metal tips of most umbrellas are usually at eye-level, and have received many uncomfortable jabs to the eyeballs (and more often than not people are annoyed that their umbrella was nudged, instead of being sorry)
- celticninja 10y ago"I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.”
- Synaesthesia 10y ago"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every Englishman of working-class origin considers it effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly." From George Orwell - England Your England http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye
- omegaham 10y agoReminds me of the Hornblower books, where Hornblower has to pronounce French cities and landmarks with the mangled British pronunciation rather than saying them in the French. The books repeatedly make a point of him doing it, along with Hornblower's annoyance at having to do so.
- justincormack 10y agoThere are a whole set of naval names for places, like Leghorn. They are falling into disuse now though.
- mc32 10y agoWhat's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.
- seszett 10y agoDepends on which land of Franks you're talking about, but in most places the Franks eventually adopted the local language of the place they ruled (which is why French is a Romance language and not a Germanic one).
- oblio 10y ago> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make my sounds be as close as possible to the actual letters used in the word! :)
- Accacin 10y agoSome of those "horrible" accents are some of the oldest accents in the UK.
- yodon 10y agoThose of us who live in Seattle tend to feel the same way. If you see someone carrying an umbrella here you can bet they're a tourist.
- Viper007Bond 10y agoPortland as well. It's seen as a sense of pride, probably because the rain here is light.
- wylee 10y agoI think the reasons are more practical. It's rare that it rains very hard in Portland. Carrying an umbrella throughout six to eight months of the year just in case is inconvenient, and you'll probably end up losing it anyway. A light rain jacket is easier to deal with and also blocks the wind. I don't think pride has much to do with it.
- InclinedPlane 10y agoSeattle and Portland don't get the same kind of rain as lots of other places (such as Chicago or Boston). In the Northwest the most common rain is a light drizzle, downpours are very rare. Whereas in many parts of the country a normal rain storm would be considered a downpour in the Northwest. For that reason people in Seattle and Portland can get through the entire winter wearing a light jacket or even a cloth hoodie. Even though hoodies aren't waterproof, being exposed to the rain for a couple minutes will only make them slightly damp, rather than sodden through and through the way they might be if one attempted to use them in other rainy cities. An umbrella is a bit of false protection from the rain as well. It's a nuisance to carry so often given that it will save you only from a mild inconvenience on most days. And as often as not it'll end up being a hindrance as you fight it from being destroyed or carried away by the wind.
- tzs 10y agoThere may be a significant difference, though. I haven't used my umbrella since moving to the Seattle area 24 years ago, but I don't recall feeling any kind of social pressure to not use it. I didn't use it because there just wasn't any point to it. That will probably sound strange to people not familiar with Seattle, considering Seattle's reputation as a rainy city, but the truth is that in terms of total amount of rain Seattle is not actually a very rainy city. Here are some cities that have about the same annual rainfall as Seattle (37.7 in), within 10%: Austin, Texas (34.2 in) Buffalo, New York (40.5 in) Chicago, Illinois (36.9) Dallas, Texas (37.6 in) Kansas City, Missouri (39.1 in) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (36.5) So why is Seattle the rainy city instead of one of those? Or one of the cities that gets a lot more rain, like like Miami, Florida (61.9 in)? I think there are two reasons Seattle gets the rainy label. 1. The Seattle rain is more spread out. Seattle gets its 37.7 in spread out over 149 days. Compare to Dallas which gets its 37.6 over 81 days. The weather stats folks count as day as a rain day if it gets 0.01 in or more of rain. Seattle's rain is fairly evenly spread among those 149 days. There will be a handful of times each year when there is a brief moment of heavy rain, but for the most part it is a fairly steady light rain. In most of the other places, it is much less uniform. They get a handful of big rainstorms, and several fairly rainy days, and many "rain days" that are just small amounts. 2. There is no really bad weather in Seattle most of the time. Some of those other cities with similar total rain also like to dump tons of snow on you, or hit you with hurricanes, or temperature extremes. Take Buffalo. 40.5 in of rain a year, over 167 days. Sounds like a better candidate than Seattle for the title of rainy city (although I haven't looked at the distribution to see if it is spread out like Seattle's)...but Buffalo also dumps 93 inches of snow a year on people. I think anyone cares about rain when they are getting 93 inches of snow. Putting these together, Seattle has the perfect combination of many days with enough rain for you to think "it's raining", and a lack of anything else that distracts from the rain, so the rain becomes its characteristic weather feature. So why are umbrellas kind of pointless here? It rains so often that you'd pretty much have to carry the thing with you all the time to keep completely dry. Eventually you'll forget it, and find yourself having to go out in the rain...and you'll find that it is no big deal. The rain is mild enough that unless you are out for a long time you just get a little damp. Damp hair can be a bit annoying, and if you wear glasses those getting wet can also be annoying...but both of those problems can be dealt with by wearing a hat with a brim, and that doesn't require dedicating a hand. On those handful of times a year when we get an actual intense rainstorm, you can usually just wait it out. They tend to only last a short time, and then go back to the normal mild rain.
- boomskats 10y agoCabbies. They probably deserved umbrellas then as much as they deserve Uber now.
- f_allwein 10y ago"In the minds of many Brits, umbrella usage was symptomatic of a weakness of character, particularly among men. Few people ever dared to be seen with such a detestable, effeminate contraption. To carry an umbrella when it rained was to incur public ridicule." This sentiment is very much alive today. I'm always surprised how I seem to be the only person carrying an umbrella in London when it rains. Especially bankers seem to prefer getting soaked.
- seizethecheese 10y agoThis is definitely alive in Portland, OR. There's a pride in handling the rain.
- dmoy 10y agoIf Portland is anything like up here in Seattle, it also doesn't actually rain that much (usually). More just a continuous drizzle for 8 solid months.
- csydas 10y agoYeah, I moved to Seattle about 6 years ago from the Midwest and was teased often by some Seattle natives for having an umbrella, which seemed to be fairly arbitrary to choose to pick on given that rubber rain boots were common enough to have fasionable variants made. Not everyone, of course, but quite a few of my colleagues would try to make it a point of pride. Tangentially, most Seattle-lites also didn't understand what I meant when I said Seattle has a lot of drizzle, but it doesn't have rain; growing up in the midwest with midwest thunderstorms, a lot of them didn't seem to understand what I meant by the smell of a storm or the greenish color of the sky as a thunderhead approaches. We all get prideful for various things, I guess though...I know far too many folk from back in WI who insist they can drive perfectly in any weather, despite having wrecked multiple cars in winters past.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoSeattle can get some bad soaking storms in October/November. Portland also! Umbrellas are taboo because you can't use them easily on your bike, so a nice rain coat (was gortex?) works better. If we did use an umbrella, it was usually the collapsible one that you could fit in your bag, full size British/Japanese style umbrellas were rare. Nothing as bad as my mom's hometown a bit further to the north (Ketchikan).
- theaeolist 10y agoSteve McClaren was the first England football manager to use an umbrella in the dugout. It didn't go down well. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2236344/Steve-McClaren-Wally-Brolly-defeat-Croatia-year-anniversary.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2236344/St...
- lordnacho 10y agoSomeday, maybe it's already happened, someone will market an umbrella drone that floats above your head. And something similar will happen.
- secfirstmd 10y agoHaving developed a mobile app called "Umbrella" for Security management, this headline nearly gave me a heart attack... :)
- zwetan 10y ago"The British also regarded umbrellas as too French" I guess it was a very bad thing at the time :D
- Chris2048 10y agoStill is. Brexit, don't ya know.
- vegancap 10y agoI still internally laugh at men who use umbrellas.
- brlewis 10y agoIn medium wind, the most practical umbrella is the clear plastic dome-shaped kind that you can hold in front of your face but still see through. Maybe there will be a new Jonas Hanway who pioneers men carrying this style of umbrella. I used to think that men wore whatever was practical and only women were bound by fashion. This may be true of shoes, but this style of umbrella revealed to me that it isn't true in general. Men (including myself) will eschew practicality for our own fashion. I'll keep carrying my impractical black umbrella for now.
- digi_owl 10y agoBoth are bound by fashion. But since somewhere around WW1, mens fashion have been somber and largely static (the largest change being the reduced use of hats since JFK).
- Paul_S 10y agoI think the crystallised male fashion is a massive cultural achievement. Right up there with shaking hands, sending letters and using cutlery. Shame about the loss of hats.
- lg 10y agoi wonder what they'll say about the first city enclosed in a climate-controlled glass dome
- bbctol 10y agoIt says that umbrellas were seen as effeminate, and identifies him in the article as the first man to use one--was he the first umbrella user in England, or just the first male one?
- jdavis703 10y agoI've always found umbrellas annoying. When walking down city streets they get in the way of trying to pass people. Sometimes people unfurl them without looking to see if there's enough space, and people let them dry off on public transit seats, making them a soupy mess for the next rider who wants a seat.
- cafard 10y agoUmbrellas are still taboo in some branches of the US military. The local paper a while back had an article about this. The Air Force wouldn't let some officer carry an umbrella to the Pentagon, but it would pay to replace or repair his hearing aids when they were damaged by the soaking.
- lquist 10y agoWhat are the English 1750s umbrellas of today?
- Paul_S 10y agoFolding umbrellas.
- svachalek 10y agoGoogle Glass. Even without the camera controversy, wearing anything on your head is hard to pull off. Bluetooth headsets approached acceptance at one point but have gone back to serious fashion faux pas. Or to take the other angle of it, anything remotely "feminine" is still violently opposed for the modern man at least in the U.S. Although the way I read it, umbrellas were rejected as "feminine" but weren't really allowed for women either.
- MrZongle2 10y agoDeclaring yourself a conservative in online tech circles, or in Hollywood.
- Mvandenbergh 10y agoThere's still a traditional prejudice among some Englishmen against non-clergymen using umbrellas in the country (as opposed to in town).
- linkregister 10y agoMaybe this is the origin of the prohibition of male American Marines from carrying umbrellas. I always wondered why the accessory was permitted for female Marines, but not for males. That said, the trench coat (All-Weather Coat, Pewter Gray) is very water repellant. And Marines in utilities can wear the Gore-tex or poncho.
- microtherion 10y agoI wonder whether anybody called umbrella users umbr-holes…
- mannykannot 10y agoI think there is more than insularity/xenophobia going on here. When faced with an unpleasant situation, there is some benefit in taking pride in one's ability to cope. It can easily be taken too far, however, leading to an aversion to doing something about it, and antipathy towards those who do. It is as if getting soaked by rain became part of Britain's tribal identity. Umbrellas are pretty effective against rain, and I think it is amusing that they were invented to protect against the sun by providing shade.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThe popular kind is still a boring, awkward black gamp. To counter the effeminate charge I assume.