Buttons

You know what's interesting and kind of satisfying? By virtue of teaching English at the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing, I now know more about buttons than the lady at Bloomingdales.

When I went for my first med school interview in November and went looking for a new suit, there was this lady in Bloomingdales who lectured me extensively about suits and jackets and cut and wearability and the life of the suit, etc. "This one is single breasted and this other one is double-breasted, so it's a little more official looking," she lectured me knowledgeably, presenting me with a suit with one single button in the middle and a suit with two rows of two buttons, respectively. "And this one is triple breasted." (A single row of three buttons.)

I had never heard of a triple-breasted suit, but she sort of bullied me into believing her and I couldn't really tell from the other two anyway, whether "breasted" refers to the number of buttons per row or the number of rows. I was not a fan of the single row look anyway, so I went for the other kind that was definitely double breasted. And escaped Bloomingdales and planned not to go back for a long time.

"This is a good suit," she proclaimed upon my leaving, "although the other one would have had better wearability in the long run. Then you could buy other pieces for it so you could mix and match for when you have a job and you have to wear a suit every day." She paused and I didn't contradict her. "Although... you said you're going to a medical school interview aren't you? So I guess you won't really have a job for a while anyway..."

Yeah, thanks, lady. Rub that right in there.

Anyway. The point is, teaching for the UFLFT, we frequently have to answer questions about what very specific things are called in English (like, there are ten billion different types of pockets that you differentiate depending on the angle, the seam, whether they are part of the front panel or not, etc.) and you know what? I was right. Breasted refers to how many rows there are, and, as far as I know, there is no such thing as triple breasted.

Take that, Bloomingdales lady.