Shyheels

People write reviews based on all sorts of loopy or idiosyncratic criteria. I noticed a review just this morning on Amazon where the reviewer gave a book a one-star review because it arrived a few days later than he had expected. So, no, a lot of reviews just aren’t fair or are simply useless, and that would apply to footwear as well. Most reviews are useless anyway as they’re usually written a day or two after the item arrived - before the purchaser can possibly have used or worn it sufficiently to judge its merits.

What a lovely offer!!!

Heels aside, I love the sound of those eggrolls and crab rangoons. I wish you'd open up an annex in Sussex!

On sandals, I'll concede, wedges look good.

Sounds pretty apocalyptic. We just had a rainy winter, with a few days of unpleasantly gusty winds

I’m boots and jeans year round, but I’ve certainly been glad to see some sunshine this past week. I know you guys over there had a lot of snow this year

You must be welcoming the change in seasons!

He did

Adrian built his wall because he didn’t want his sojers being Pict on

Isn't the English language a rich one, with all its nuances and flexibility; more than a million words in all with contributions coming from 100 other languages.

Yes, PVC would be a bit warm in summer!

Hopefuly she was wearing elegant heels - boots, naturally - as well!

Good luck with it! I’m always leery of these Chinese sites - no personal experience, just an inborn caution

I remember having to learn the prolgue to The Canterbury Tales in Chaucerian English...

Why write “would of” when you can shorten it to “woulda”? In terms of the other part of the discussion, has no one ever heard the vaudevillian phrase “knock ‘em dead”? It’s not to be taken literally, any more than “break a leg”. “Lay ‘em in the aisles” and “slay ‘em” have been around for ages and are widely understood, and an accepted part of the vernacular. “You killed the look” is similarly widely understood and accepted. At any rate, I’m done with this. Seems to me we’ve hijacked Cali’s thread more than enough.

Like everyone I use idiom and slang and am familiar with their use by others. When I say I am a writer, I do not mean of legal documents, but of what are meant to be bright engaging magazine features using the full palette of the English language. And believe me the use of the word slay, as a metaphor, is common and widely understood to mean impress or entertain both here and around the world in the Universal English our language has become. It was used as metaphor as far back as the 19th century, but it’s use it this sense has had skyrocketed in the past 50 years - starting in the 1970s, and led by the black, queer and Latin communities. Comedians have used it for years to indicate success, that they impressed or entertained. Its usage has accelerated even more in the past decade, popularised by stars like Beyonce and has widespread currency on Tik Tok. It is globally understood.

You seem to forget I live in the UK. And writing and communication is my business. I do it effectively and have won awards for it, both in the UK and abroad. I might add that the Cambridge Dictionary includes “to impress” as a secondary definition of slay. I haven’t consulted the Oxford but I expect they’ll have the same.

I’m talking about wearing boots, heels. We all wear something on our feet. A hiking boot is a hiking boot, a trainer is a trainer, pretty much no matter which side of the shop you’re buying from. It’s just when you tinker with this one particular design element common to nearly all forms of footwear that all the angst starts. High heels are seen as feminine so virtually no men wear them. When you do see a man in heels it looks odd, unusual, confusing and since we tend to like to have our expectations met, it seems unsettling. What I am saying is that it is more likely to be this unsettled feeling that makes us question and doubt how we look in heels rather than any objective aesthetic.

I think a lot of this is conditioning - we’re, as in society at large, are not conditions to seeing men in heels and so when we do see it, it looks strange, unsettling. And we don’t like being unsettled. That very much colours our perceptions which are already burdened by the forbidden aspect of wearing heels. I looked at myself in a full length mirror while wearing by stiletto boots, and if I looked objectively - setting aside all the issues associated with being a guy in heels, but just stuck to aesthetics - I couldn’t see a problem. I happen to be tall and with slender legs thanks to a lot of cycling, and if you were to take a photo of me from the waist down, in skinny jeans and in stiletto boots, I would not raise an eyebrow. The assumption would be that this was a photo of a woman’s legs in stiletto boots. It’s only when we see that, no, it’s actually a guy that our censoriousness kicks in and says this shouldn’t be. It’s the unease we don’t like, not the visuals

It is! Travel is the same way. Retirees have all the time in the world to travel but usually lack the money!

You succeeded. The overwhelming percentage of people would have taken that lines in exactly the way you meant it. It is a very common idiomatic use and meaning of the verb “to slay”

I always liked the poem “Warning” by Jenny Joseph

I think oldies in our society are considered too irrelevant ever to be in anyone’s face. We are the least interesting, least valuable demographic. We pose neither a challenge nor a threat

I am not for a moment suggesting that women have it tough in the fashion world - they have extraordinary latitude in what they can wear and men have very little. They can be as expressive as they like while we must conform. I get it. What I am saying is that historically women have demonstrated the pluck to adopt a masculine fashion and make it their own. Men have never done the reverse - adopt a feminine fashion and make it a mainstream look for themselves.

Exactly