Balaclavas and wellies

Continuing the clothing theme, today we’re looking at articles of clothing named after people or places.

Our first exhibit is the wellington boot, a type of knee or calf-length rubber boot named after the 1st Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), the commander of the British forces at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellingtons are affectionately know as wellies or welly boots, and in some parts of the UK welly chucking/throwing is a popular pastime.

Our second exhibit is the balaclava helmut, a close-fitting woollen hood that covers the ears and neck, as originally worn by soldiers in the Crimean War, and named after Balaklava, a small port in South Crimea.

In Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment, there’s a running gag involving soldiers dreaming of the an article of clothing being named after them.

Are there any others you can think of?

By the way, does anybody have any suggestions for reducing comment spam? The spammers have been hitting this blog a lot.

5 thoughts on “Balaclavas and wellies

  1. Jodhpurs are named after the Indian city. Jerseys are named after the Island.

    Do you have to edit the comment spam out?

  2. Is there any spams? ummm
    for the clothing thing …. the Kelt I think is named after Celtic or something? I’m not sure!

  3. Here in the American southwest, a Mexican-style hooded pullover is called a baja. I think the name comes from Baja California, the western-most state in Mexico. However, the last time I was in Mexico and asked for a baja, the merchant laughed at me and told me that’s not what it’s called. He told me the the correct name, but I don’t remember what it is.

    (As for spam… is there a service that can filter it for you? Maybe by keyword? Or maybe you could require users to register on your website.)

  4. Any comments containing certain keywords and/or two or more links are held for ‘moderation’ – I delete the spam and approve the genuine comments. This system doesn’t catch all the spam comments though, so I go through the comments manually and delete the spam.

    I was just wondering if any of you are WordPress users and know of an effective spam filter / blocker.

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