📘 Part 3: Clothes

This episode's vocabulary

Ill-advised (adj.) - not wise, and likely to cause problems in the future.

To impede (verb) - to make it more difficult for something to happen or more difficult for someone to do something.

Context (noun) - the situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it.

Uniformity (noun) - the quality or fact of being the same, or of not changing or being different in any way.

To stand out (phrasal verb) - to be very noticeable.

Walkie-talkie (noun) - a small radio held in the hand, used for both sending and receiving messages.

Pager (noun) - a small device that you carry or wear that moves or makes a noise to tell you that someone wants you to contact them.

Avant-garde (adj.) - avant-garde ideas, styles, and methods are very original or modern in comparison to the period in which they happen.

Novelty (noun) - the quality of being new and unusual.

Set in your ways (idiom) - not liking change in your life.

Diverse (adj.) - including many different types of people or things.

Concrete (adj.) - clear and certain, or real and existing in a form that can be seen or felt.

Generalization (noun) - a written or spoken statement in which you say or write that something is true all of the time when it is only true some of the time.

Universally (adverb) - in a way that exists everywhere, or involves everyone.

Applicable (adj.) - affecting or relating to a person or thing.

Questions and Answers

M: Do you think people need to wear formal clothes in the workplace?

R: Well, surely that depends on where you work and what role you have. I mean, it's probably ill-advised to wear a suit in a mechanics or a bakery, for example. Since it will just get messy and it could actually impede your work and be dangerous. You need to dress to match the context. That's more important.

M: Why do some people like to wear traditional clothes?

R: It's possible they're just really into their traditions, or traditional ways of living and dressing. Since there's so much uniformity in terms of the clothes people wear these days, something traditional is also a way to stand out in many ways, actually, weird as it may sound.

M: Will traditional clothes disappear in the future?

R: I don't see why they should. I mean, we still have walkie-talkies and pagers, and they're not exactly avant-garde. People might wear them less often, perhaps, but as long as there's some novelty and interest in them, they will likely stick around.

M: Do old people change their style of dressing?

R: Well, you'd have to ask an old person. I don't see why they couldn't, if, if they wanted to, but older people tend to be more set in their ways. So if anyone is less likely to change how they dress, it's probably them.

M: Can we learn about someone's personality based on the clothes they wear?

R: No. You may have been able to do that, but I don't think you can now, because the reasons for wearing clothes are so diverse, it's best to talk to them. You could make some assumptions, but in order to know concrete things, you have to talk to them.

M: What's the difference between clothes that young people and old people like to wear?

R: I suppose, generally speaking, young people tend to follow certain trends and, well, certain modern trends more closely than older people. But that's a very broad generalization, just because younger people tend to care more about these things.

M: Why do people change the style of the clothes as they grow older.

R: Well, that's the thing, really, I'm not sure that they do. I think their style of clothing changes in contrast to what is current and modern, but I think they probably just keep it the same, to be honest. They might change it to make it more accessible, because your ability to move around more freely changes, but as far as I can think, that's the only universally applicable reason.

M: Hey, thank you, Rory, for your answers!