Hats you say?

My friends and I have a penchant for what some (nigh most) would consider frivolous and near meaningless engagement in unnecessary verbosity. In fact that is nearly the only purpose of this particular blog. It just so happens that last night, whilst at the public house, a debate arose betwixt myself and MrDNA regarding the meaning of Haberdashery, his contention being that such was a purveyor of men's hats, and mine being as previously stated.

This was all refereed by sEtOH, quite fairly, but at the end of the night, with no quantifiable justification for either claim, we found ourselves at an impasse, if you will.

In the interest of continuing the largely irrelevant debate I then sent this email to my good naturedly contentious friend. The subject heading was "Google search for the term Haberdashery"

The first hit is the wikipedia page


The first line of which says thus:

A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons and zippers.

A few sentences later:

Obsolete meanings of the term "haberdasher" refer to a "dealer in, or maker of, hats and caps".[3]

I will now consider the matter settled.


I then received the following retort.

Dearest Casey,
As someone who derives a living in academia, and as someone who is charged with the instruction of young, impressionable minds, surely you must be aware of the dangers of relying on crowdsourced data, which, although useful, Wikipedia most definitely is,

I submit several actual dictionary definitions of the word "haberdasher", which, much like powers in an equation naturally take precedence over a mere Wikipedia definition:

Exhibit A.
hab⋅er⋅dash⋅er
 /ˈhæbərˌdæʃər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [hab-er-dash-er] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a retail dealer in men's furnishings, as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.
2. Chiefly British. a dealer in small wares and notions.
Origin:
1275–1325; ME haberdasshere, of obscure orig.; cf. AF habredache haberdashery, hapertas perh. a kind of cloth
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Exhibit B.
hab·er·dash·er (hāb'ər-dāsh'ər) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. A dealer in men's furnishings.
2. Chiefly British A dealer in sewing notions and small wares.


[Middle English, perhaps from Anglo-Norman hapertas, petty wares.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Exhibit C.
haberdasher
1311, from Anglo-Fr. hapertas "small wares," of unknown origin. At first "a dealer in small articles of trade," sense of "dealer in men's wares" is 1887 in Amer.Eng., via intermediate sense of "seller of hats."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Exhibit D.
haberdasher

noun
a merchant who sells men's clothing [syn: clothier]

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

Exhibit D.
Haberdasher
Hab"er*dash"er\, n. [Prob. fr. Icel. hapurtask trumpery, trifles, perh. through French. It is possibly akin to E. haversack, and to Icel. taska trunk, chest, pocket, G. tasche pocket, and the orig. sense was perh., peddler's wares.]

1. A dealer in small wares, as tapes, pins, needles, and thread; also, a hatter. [Obs.]

The haberdasher heapeth wealth by hats. --Gascoigne.

2. A dealer in drapery goods of various descriptions, as laces, silks, trimmings, etc.

Your blog, according to roughly 90% of dictionary definitions and 95% of personal responses, is about various types of hats.
Please make sure Bowlers are fairly represented.

John

To which I replied:

Those are all really evidence more than anything else that I am, in fact correct.

From your evidence.

A dealer in small wares, as tapes, pins, needles, and thread; also, a hatter. [Obs.]

Obs, referring to the obsolete nature of the hatter definition.

And his riposte, if you will:

So you take definition number 7 to prove your point? You've got a future in Fox News with that sort of citation skillz.

Thanks for proving MY point :)

John

I politely therefore would like to redirect your attention to Exhibit A

Exhibit A.
hab⋅er⋅dash⋅er
 /ˈhæbərˌdæʃər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [hab-er-dash-er] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a retail dealer in men's furnishings, as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.
2. Chiefly British. a dealer in small wares and notions.
Origin:
1275–1325; ME haberdasshere, of obscure orig.; cf. AF habredache haberdashery, hapertas perh. a kind of cloth
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Definition 1clearly is somewhat buttressing to my most worthy adversary's argument, however only in the vaguest sense. But definition 2 quite clearly states "small wares and notions" which I quite strongly contend directly implies Items of Various Miscellany.

He has, as I write this, made a follow-up argument for his regrettable stance:

Furthermore, I will submit the Oxford English dictionary's definition:

haberdasher

/habbrdashr/

• noun 1 Brit. a dealer in dressmaking and sewing goods. 2 N. Amer. a dealer in men's clothing.

— DERIVATIVES haberdashery noun.

— ORIGIN probably from Old French hapertas, perhaps the name of a fabric.

While no doubt interesting, I suspect that the subject of your blog will not have a focus on buttons, threads, trim, fabric, and other items a haberdasher will employ in his line of work.

1-0, me.

I dispute and repudiate any such notion of your point sir. Clearly the debate will rage ad nauseam.

C-Note

Knickknacks and whatnot.

Miscellany should be self evident. A haberdasher is a purveyor of small, miscellanious knickknacks. Whatever, it's a blog, it doesn't need a fucking point.

C-Note