OK, I plead guilty to the tweed jacket (bought in Edinborough) and the meerschaum pipe. But I ain't got no cravat. I did break down and drop like $700 on academic regalia about five years ago. Have worn it exactly once. I figure I'll amortize it by getting buried in it. The upside is that no matter how fat I get, I'm not going to outgrow it.
I think there's a generational divide, though. We old fart academics wanted to look like we were one of those wrong-side-of-the-road driving English types. Hence the tweed and pipes. The younger ones want to pretend they're living in Berkeley during the Summer of Love.
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