Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:26:06 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at panix.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Fancy Dress
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 03:11 AM 6/2/2007, dicconf wrote:

>Over the past two years I believe I have observed - how to express
>it - a few oddities in how some people express themselves in WSFA
>and at Capclave.  At the 2006 Capclave, for instance, there was a
>party advertised as "fancy dress".  From my reading of British and
>American novels of the twentieth century, I knew that "fancy dress"
>means "costume party", which is rather different from "formal dress".
>I was rather surprised to find that a large percentage of the people
>attending honestly believed that "fancy dress" meant "formal dress",
>which is a usage I have never come across before.

I believe that I've come across such a usage as part of invitations but
can't recall.  Meanwhile these days 'Formal' can sound intimidating, not
what we wanted.  What we did want was for this to be not just a party but
An Event.  When trying to figure out our options I came across "fancy
dress" as costume, a meaning I'd didn't know until then.  Jane Austin never
had a costume party that I recall, the British books that my godfather
regularly sent to me didn't either.  So while we knew there was a slight
risk that someone would consider it a costume party and didn't happen to
talk with anyone else who was attending, we used 'fancy' in the sense of:

adj.   fan·ci·er, fan·ci·est

    1. Highly decorated: a fancy hat.
    2. Arising in the fancy; capricious.
    3. Executed with skill; complex or intricate: the fancy footwork of a
figure skater.
    4. Of superior grade; fine: fancy preserves.
    5. Excessive or exorbitant: paid a fancy price for the car.

The wording had the result we wanted.  (And, as I'd expected it gave those
of us who've gotten fancy dresses for the Hugos another place to wear
them.  Quite a few mentioned this.)  So it seems that the phrase has come
to mean what we hoped it would.

Elspeth, Chair Capclave '06, Retired

Speaking as just Elspeth:

I'm not ignoring the other things going on on the WSFA list. Instead I
printed out tonight all the relevant messages.  From there I'm taking my
time to consider things before saying anything.
E.