Hats and Coats
Among many segments of the European population, it is considered rude to wear hats or other head coverings indoors, especially in churches, schools, private homes and respected public institutions. In churches, however, ladies are often exempt from this rule or even obliged to cover their heads in some Catholic churches.
Wearing coats, boots or other outer garments inside someone’s home is often frowned upon as well. Sitting down to eat at table wearing a hat or coat etc. is even worse. Also one should remove one's hat when showing deference. Removing one's hat is also a form of greeting: the origin of this is that knights were expected to remove their helmets when meeting their king; not to do so would be a sign of mistrust and hostility.
Read more about this topic: Etiquette In Europe
Famous quotes containing the words hats and, hats and/or coats:
“There are several natural phenomena which I shall have to have explained to me before I can keep on going as a resident member of the human race. One is the metamorphosis which hats and suits undergo exactly one week after their purchase, whereby they are changed from smart, intensely becoming articles of apparel into something children use when they want to “dress up like daddy.””
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Farmers in overalls and wide-brimmed straw hats lounge about the store on hot summer days, when the most common sound is the thump-thump-thump of a hound’s leg on the floor as he scratches contentedly. Oldtime hunters say that fleas are a hound’s salvation: his constant twisting and clawing in pursuit of the tormentors keeps his joints supple.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire:
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)