Beard of the Week
This week we double our fun. The young gentlemen — unknown to me, alas — are showing off two styles of beard that are probably the most popular in current fashion: a van Dyke (on the left) and a trimmed, full beard (on the right).
The van Dyke — a chin beard with mustache that may or may not be attached — is commonly called a "goatee", but this is a misnomer, at least until the shift in terminology is fully adopted. The "goatee" properly refers only to a small beard on the chin, without a mustache, rather in the manner of a goat.
As an aging curmudgeon, I find it irritating when previously unambiguous terminology becomes muddied and loses its utility, at least for awhile. In my writing, when I refer to this style of beard, I will call it a "van Dyke", or sometimes a "mouth beard" — to distinguish it from a "chin beard" — when I want to conjure up the definite image. Not surprisingly, I begrudge calling it a "goatee", so I avoid that moniker altogether.
If I start to feel like a crusade, perhaps I'll start insisting that the van Dyke, rather than being called a "goatee", be more appropriately called a "schnauzer".
Back when I was working at the University of Maryland, I had a colleague who had wirey, wavy hair and who wore a van Dyke. He drove a Volkswagon Beetle, and whenever I saw him drive by, I always had the initial impression that the car was being driven by a Schnauzer. For some reason, this never alarmed me.
2 Responses
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 31 May 2007 at 17.48
Permalink
God, I love Google – I am writing a book and had to describe exactly the beard you have in the pic above (guy on the left) and I was thinking Van Dyck and looked up the painter himself. Wellll….Noooo…not THAT…..tweaky looking thing on the Old Master's self-portarait …so I just put in van Dyke and got a whole page of stuff and picked yours because "Beard of the Week" sounded funny & interesting and …ta-daaah …the perfect beard… so I can say Van Dyke or Dike or Dyck or …dunno…in my book… so..thanks…How do I become a subscriber to your Blog? I'm gonna read all your stuff just for drill. I'm new to all this …a dinosaur of 60… good thing 60 is the new 40…'cause somewhere in my head the 18-year-old is still trying to get out… How old are YOU?
Thanks again,
Annonshay
(Hey… I had to send away for a Latin translator to do your motto…I guess I really could just ask YOU… but do you ever write back? Do Blogs do that… i dunno…I'm still a total neophyte at this stuff)
on Thursday, 31 May 2007 at 23.04
Permalink
I'm glad I could help Shannon — sure you don't want to call it a "schnauzer" though?
I am chuffed that you described "Beard of the Week" as "funny & interesting"; those are very satisfying attributes, I think.
As for subscribing, there's nothing to do except to read new posts when they appear and make witty and diverting comments occasionally. No subscription necessary!
As of this writing I am 51 years old, born in 1956.
Yes, I do write back, and you'll find that many bloggers do. Were you to ask I'd probably translate "nullus pudor est ad meliora transire" as "It is no disgrace to pass on to better things." (See this posting for its origins as my motto.)