On the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list (http://lists.herald.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lois-bujold), Eric Oppen posted this in an off-topic thread about clothing trends:
Whenever someone starts waxing envious in my presence about foreign countries’ practice of wearing school uniforms, and wishes the same on American kids, I like to respond:
“That’s a wonderful idea! And I know just the sort needed! The colors would be “barry argent and sable, semee’ of pheons, countercharged.”
Most people don’t get the joke, but I said that in front of several SCA heralds once, who were all highly amused and said I was being quite multicultural.
(For those not familiar with heraldic language, what I am suggesting is uniforms featuring horizontal black-and-white stripes, scattered with “broad arrowheads” white on black and black on white. IOW, combining the features of traditional US and UK prison uniforms.)
Posted with Eric’s permission, of course.
