On Tenterhooks: A Compendium of Textile Words, Terms and Expressions

“Are you feeling groggy after a few wool staplers or are you on tenterhooks that you are neither dressed up to the nines nor gussied up in your best togs before receiving your green jacket and not a green coat? Then keep your shirt on and wear the old school tie with your Sunday suit so you will not be mistaken as a candidate for a man of the cloth”. The terms italicised here in this text from the back cover remind us how much of everyday British English derives from clothing and textile manufacture. Groggy, feeling...