Button-front: Van Heusen Outlet — Skirt: Gift (made by Tia’s mom!) — Sandals: Danskos — Earrings: Giveaway prize from Dressing Up For Life — Necklace: Hand-me-down — Ring: Gift
Sometimes it’s just pineapple skirt time, y’know?
Which is also as good a time as any to mix florals.
Well, I guess the top isn’t really a floral, but “foliage print” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I’m willing to let taxonomic inconsistencies slide once in a while (read: when it suits me). HOWEVER: they’re still button-fronts, not button-downs. Nearly two years later and I’m still willing to stand by that.
What are your thoughts on popular usage, should you have any?
Reading in Skirts 
Brilliant pattern-mixing. I say button-downs because it is the popular, if wrong, usage and I don’t want to confuse people. Yeah, I’ma giver like that.
!!! I love your pattern matching! That skirt is so amazing. I’m generally a word person, but I didn’t know that button down was improper. I’ll have to switch over!
Wait… have I been saying it wrong all this time? Inconceivable!
But I’m perfectly willing to have women’s shirts be button-fronts. Men can keep their button-downs.
I LURVE pineapple prints. I had a pineapple print dress, I wish I had hung onto.
As for the buttonfront versus buttondown… I just call it a shirt. =P
Personally, I hate when people use the word “decimated” to mean “destroyed” or “obliterated”. I was a Latin student in high school.Decimated means to reduce by 1/10. Not so awesome as “obliterating” something imo.
I have so many thoughts about popular usage! I used to be really into rules, but I’m coming around to the view that language isn’t set in stone, and it’s OK when it changes. I understand your frustration, thought, that the word button-down used to mean something specific and now there isn’t a way to say that succinctly. But in general I don’t like saying that people are wrong when they speak a certain way because there can be a lot of privilege tied up in it, and it can get classist or racist. The usage of button-down is one thing, but it’s different when people say that constructions that are grammatical in, for example, African American Vernacular English, are “wrong.”
I do, however, agree with Megan Mae about decimated! That drives me nuts. I also have strong opinions about the word “niche,” namely that it’s fine to say either “nitch” or “neesh” but that I personally prefer “nitch.” I say this because you mentioned “niche” on your earlier button front/down post, and I’m curious about your opinion on the matter. I am ambivalent about “forte” when used in phrases such as “mixing foliage patterns is Mia’s forte.” My understanding is that both pronunciations are acceptable, but my mom told me that “fort” is preferred because we got the word from French, not Italian like the musical term. I don’t say it very much, but I would say “fort” if I said it. Also it drives me nuts when people say “addicting” instead of “addictive.” When did that become a thing? Am I the only one who is bothered by this? Am I dead wrong about it? I don’t know! I guess I’m a hypocrite about that “don’t say other people’s language usage is wrong” thing.
In short, I want your pineapple skirt so bad!
Yeah, the classist/racist implications of prescriptivism are a big contributor as to why I’ve become much less het up about that sort of thing. And ultimately, a lot of it doesn’t actually affect my ability to understand another person, and I get tired of being picky. (Well, sometimes. Sometimes being picky is fun.)
Re: niche, I prefer “neesh” and grimace a little when people say “nitch,” but it’s an old habit that’s starting to fade. I’d never heard the fort/forte thing, although now that I’d know I’d probably still say “forte” because let’s face it, most people would side-eye you about that sort of thing. (Same with overpronouncing “croissant.”) I don’t think I’ve seen “addicting” for “addictive” before, at least not that I’ve noticed. (I’ll probably see it everywhere now.) I do, however, say “nauseated” instead of “nauseating,” even though I know most people don’t care about the “proper” definitions between the two; I just can’t go back now that I know. I’m still kind of a stickler about punctuation because it feels so much like the visual equivalent of, I dunno, a sour note. We’ve all got our sticking points.
Related! http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-in-america-2013-6
I remember at Geek Trivia a few weeks ago, one of the questions was what .gif actually stands for, and my teammate and I debated graphic vs. graphical for way too long. And then we got it wrong anyway.
Button-downs have little tiny buttons that you attach the collar points to, right? I’ve never actually seen shirts like that, but that’s what my mom told me. I still call them button-downs instead of button-fronts.