Mysteries of vernacular: Tuxedo - Jessica Oreck

Transcriber: Andrea McDonough
Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar

Mysteries of Vernacular: Tuxedo: men's evening wear for semi-formal occasions. Tuxedo, surprisingly, has its roots in Native American history. The Delaware Indians of what is now the Northeast United States were divided into three subgroups, distinguished by their animal totems: the turkey, the turtle, and the wolf.

Members of the tribe belonging to the wolf totem were often referred to by the indigenous word for the four-footed canine, p'tuksit. In the 18th century, Europeans who settled in the former region of the P'tuksit Anglicized the name as "tuxedo" and slapped it on a town in southeast New York.

Decades later, in the late 1800s, a lavish resort was constructed and christened "The Tuxedo Club". It was at The Tuxedo Club, around the turn of the century, when a dress jacket was required for almost every occasion, that a brash young man, heir to an enormous tobacco fortune, caused a stir by flaunting tradition and donning a formal dinner jacket without tails.

His bold fashion statement was quickly popularized and nicknamed tuxedo, which in modern America, is the headache of high school prom attendees across the nation.