At what point does good style become a good idea? Or to put it another way, at what point does style become substance?  It seems to me that the same issues apply to language as they do to clothing. We all like to think that it doesn’t matter if you wear a designer suit or a pair of trackie bottoms, but it does. It’s that old chestnut of body language and visual communication which landed unhappy punters in so much trouble at Chaos Thaoghaire in the first post on this blog. Trackie bottoms and tracksuit bottoms are just not the same thing. Not really. Trackie bottoms have a hole in them in an unmentionable place. You wear them for lounging around the house on a Sunday morning or for having a few quiet beers in front of the television on a Saturday night. You can wear your tracksuit bottoms out jogging. It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it…and still, don’t you just wish sometimes that ideas could be laid bare in all their naked glory, without worrying about cultural and stylistic connotations. Like Chinese whispers subtle stylistic changes slowly render the picture other than it was and we find ourselves looking in through a different coloured pane of the lantern, at the ever-burning flame underneath.

When does good use of words constitute good sense? In other words, when does good use of words turn into content? In my opinion the same problems occur with both how we speak and what we wear. People often consider that it makes no difference if you sport an Armani three-piece or jogging bottoms, but they are wrong. It all goes back to the old idea of non-verbal messages and how we get a lot of information from what we see, something that caused a raft of problems for the unfortunate contestants at Chaos Thaoghaire in the earliest uploaded piece of writing on this weblog. Jogging bottoms and sports trousers are quite different. Quite different indeed. Jogging bottoms are rough and ready and can be worn out on a cross-country adventure. They are worn for everyday sweaty sporty activities. They may develop splits in obscure positions. Sports trousers are not for actually doing any sport in, but for looking ‘sporting, what, tally ho!’. A rose by any other name stinks in a very different way….but then, wouldn’t it be great if thoughts might be set out in all their underlying truth, free from the disturbing associations engendered by context and wording. For when a sentence is quietly uttered from ear to ear, the resultant change in words gradually removes the image conveyed quite far from its origins and then we peer in at the eternal light within from an alternative perspective.

Pray tell, under which circumstances does a manner of speaking or writing become a matter of meaning? Gentle reader, may I express this otherwise: under which conditions might one’s mode of expression influence the signification of what is communicated? Might I humbly suggest that the same question applies equally both to diction and choice of apparel.  Less sophisticated minds are apt to believe that there is not a whit of import in whether one chooses to present oneself to the world in an outfit of the highest quality tailoring or in well-worn riding breeches, but regarding this issue they are most mistaken. Returning to the age-old incident concerning the important place of gesture and looks in our interchanges, we see how these led poor game-players at Chaos Thaoghaire far astray, as described in my initiative internet epistle. Riding breeches and outfits of the highest quality tailoring differ in considerable ways. Incontestably so. Riding breeches are wont to wear in unspeakable  locations. They are designed for leisurely jaunts on horseback when the hard week’s work is done. They flatter the figure of the man out a-wooing as he gallops up to the silhouette of an elegant lady bearing a parasol. To the frivolities of such romance, they are perfectly suited. Clothes and manners maketh the man! Alas, such is the case, for I rather think it would be a matter of the greatest marvel if our cogitations might be revealed for what they are. That is to say, without embellishment. Without the intrusive and distorting factor of the manner in which they are delivered. Issues of style unfortunately resemble rather more the case in which the passing of a secret or rumour from mouth to mouth may incrementally alter the original representation, so that we may discover we have changed our stance and are now situated in an entirely different place with regard to the underlying, ever-flickering and luminescent truth.

This was a sort, kind or manner of modest homage to Raymond Queneau’s ‘Exercises in Style’ and the synonymy of English, with a prescribed dose, non-alcoholic measure, and/or some meteorological spits and spots of poetic licence.