For this segment on
The Meaning of Headlines, a reader requested information on the meaning of
‘dressing down.’ I found an excellent example of a newspaper article with an
approriate headline.
The Belfast Telegraph published an article
on 18 July 2016 with the headline: BBC’s Stephen Nolan gets a dressing down for
filming mun shop in dressing gown in Tesco. What is a dressing down?
Dressing down (often
written dressing-down) is an English expression. The Oxford Dictionaries
defines ‘dressing-down’ as ‘a severe reprimand’ or a rebuke, a remonstance, a
telling-off. The Free Dictionary defines ‘dressing down’ as ‘a severe scolding’
or ‘severe discipline.’ It is thought to have originated in the military,
whereby a formal ‘dressing down’ was punishment or discipline to reduce an
soldier’s rank or status – in which the uniform also changes, with the insignia,
stripes, stars, and so on reduced in rank. The soldier has been dressed down.
Sometimes this occurs literally (a demotion) or figuratively (verbal
punishment).
So, in this article,
BBC radio announcer Stephen Nolan is disciplined or punished or told-off for
filming someone in their dressing gown (a robe worn over sleepwear or pyjamas).
The article’s first
sentence provides instant clarity: ‘He may be one of the BBC’s top names – but
it doesn’t spare Stephen Nolan a telling-off from his mum.’ Yes, he filmed his
own mother, who was shopping in Telsco supermarket in her dressing gown. Not
only that, Nolan streamed it live on Facebook. So the ‘mum’ in the article is
his own mum.
The article explains
that Nolan posted the images of his mum Audrey and her friend Betty as they
were grocery shopping. The article added: ‘But his clearly-irked mother was not
in the mood for any larking about.’ Larking about is a term for ‘having fun’ or
‘playing tricks on someone.’ She had been treated for a sore shoulder at the
Kingsbridge Private Hospital. So she was not happy about her son filming her,
especially since she told him not to let anyone see her in her dressing gown.
Nolan’s 75-year-old
mother Audrey swore at her son and hit him (lightly) with her walking stick.
Nolan said, ‘that’s why I love Big Audrey so much. She doesn’t change who or
what she is for anybody.’ He said he filmed her to attempt to cheer her up and
‘have a laugh.’ While he thought it was funny, she did not.
Scorecard for the Belfast Telegraph headline is 100%.
Dressing down has been used in the article because it means a scolding, a
telling-off, or a rebuke by Stephen Nolan’s mother. His mother Audrey was
wearing a dressing gown, which is, of course, not her usual day wear – she
has dressed ‘down’, literally, by wearing casual and comfortable sleepwear. Hence
‘dressing down’ has been used as a double
entendre – a word with two meanings. Dressing down is the opposite of
dressing up – wearing ‘best’ or ‘fancy’ clothes to go to a meeting, an event,
or somewhere special. Audrey has dressed down, and she has given her son a
dressing down – demoting him from a well-known BBC radio announcer to just a
naughty boy. It’s kind of funny and clever.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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