Posted on 02/23/2006 3:38:31 AM PST by ShadowDancer
Store Flier Describes T-Shirts As 'Wife-Beaters'
Company Apologizes, Plans Retraction
POSTED: 9:58 am EST February 22, 2006
UPDATED: 11:24 am EST February 22, 2006
BOSTON -- Building 19, a Massachusetts-based discount store known for its quirky sales circulars, described a package of sleeveless T-shirts as "wife-beaters" in a recent sales flier.
WCVB-TV reported Tuesday that even store officials admitted that the flier went too far. It upset advocates for domestic violence victims.
"I can't say what I thought. I know what I thought, but I can't say out loud what I thought," Jane Doe Inc. spokeswoman Mary Lauby said.
The flier advertised a three-pack of men's undershirts as "wife-beaters."
"That does, you know, go to numbing and dumbing down and normalizing and suggesting that battering is a normal behavior," Lauby said.
Building 19 spokesman Jerry Ellis took the criticism seriously.
"They were right. It was awful and I am sorry it happened," Ellis said.
E-mails came into the discount store's Hingham headquarters where everyone was apologetic.
"It's a slang expression, a street expression, but we should have known better not to use it. I am supposed to read every word. Sometimes it's busy or I am lazy. We are working on a retraction," Ellis said.
Well, that makes no sense. A T-shirt is called a "T-shirt" because when you lay it out flat, it is in the shape of a "T".
A similar sleeveless shirt would be more like an "I-shirt", don'tcha think?
The girls' versions are now called "boy beaters" and just about every catalog uses that term to describe them. What's the issue, again? ;)
Oops! Great minds think alike.
Apparently mediocre minds as well...
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Exactly right. Unfortunately, the msm won't let it die.
So do most people. That is what they are called.
I'm 53 and I only know because my nephews tipped me off 8 or 10 years ago.
They apologized, lets move on.
That makes sense in an odd, trailer park, Budweiser, Saturday night crazies are out kind of way. :)
When worn on the outside, we call them "tank tops" or, simply, "cheap".
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BTW & FWIW, the "Building 19" stores, of which there are many (distingushed by fractional numbers -- as in "Building 19-3/4") are, indeed, "zany" places. They are disorganized "clutter-mazes" that dispose of all sorts of overstocked goods. Savvy folks never go there expecting to find something in particular -- they go to see what "bargains" they can "unearth"...
I think you nailed it. I've always heard these were called wife beaters as a result of Stanley Kowalski.
"STELLLLAAAAAAA!!"
It's the sleeves that make 'em "T" shirts, right?
If they're sleeve-less, shouldn't we call 'em "I-shirts" instead?
I believe the technical term for them is A-shirts. Ever since COPS came out I have heard them called wife beaters prior to that tank tops.
You win!
They just don't LISTEN.
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