Shocking error exposed???

Thankfully, Wigwam Jones had the courage to speak out and expose the grievous error he insisted I made in my "Why?!" he lamented post. Mr. Jones commented:

Not a goatee, most likely. A 'Van Dyke'. A goatee has no mustache. What people refer to as a 'goatee' is a Van Dyke most of the time.

Like people calling Chinos "Khakis." Khaki is a color, people, not a pants style.

So, our beards are Van Dykes and our pants are Chinos. Are we clear on this? Good.

Now, I, on the other hand, have a 'reverse Van Dyke.' And I refuse to wear pants at all most of the time.

The kids do cry, of course.

Naturally, I was distressed to discover that a goatee is not really a goatee, that khakis are not really khakis, and that Mr. Jones may have commented on my blog while he was sans pants.

I decided to research the question...the beard question, that is.

It turns out that a goatee is defined as "a small chin beard trimmed to a point; named for its resemblance to a goat's beard" while a Van Dyke is defined as "a short pointed beard (named after Anthony Vandyke)". Wait, that doesn't help me at all, since it doesn't settle the moustache question.

My research led me to a the goatee section of a website called "All About Beards" which stated, "Some say this beard style should be called a VanDyke rather than goatee. Others disagree. In any case, in popular usage today, they are almost always just called goatees."

All this means, of course, that I can go right on calling my husband's beard a goatee. So there.

However, I am deeply thankful to Wigwam Jones because, for the sake of my husband's reputation, it is important to set the record straight about his beard, namely that he does have a moustache. As everyone knows, men without moustaches are not to be trusted, and I would hate for anyone to think that my husband fell in that category.