Where else can you get away with wearing such a comfortable, fun shirt in so many different contexts.

On top of all your reasons, it's just too hot and humid year round in Hawaii to wear a suit regularly. Must be pure misery for the people who have to.

Can't help but agree with it either, its always nice. Why tie yourself down with a suit? (pun intended)

As Neal Stephenson has observed, the three-piece wool suit makes perfect sense if you're in a place where the year-round temperature is a constant 50 degrees F, indoors and out.

Basically, the British Isles before modern central heating, and nowhere else.

How's that for non-officinally sanctioned?

So the irony is misplaced, it's not just "wannabe rebels" that can curse.

I know very true rebels, including people who actually got in prison for fighting a military dictatorship, that curse like it's going out of style. And others that are very well spoken and high society mannered.

That said, if you want to write about it, a sign of being more of a rebel than not, would be not to go with the prudishness of writing it as "f", as if it's some big deal.

It makes me happy to know that they actually create the idea and is a positive part of their culture, and not just another adoption of their colonizer's culture.

I also have some shirts with much bolder fluorescent colors and more garish styling, many of which I bought at Hilo Hattie's, which ironically does not exist in Hilo. I bought mine on Maui, during that same trip.

The latter are what I would call "Hawaiian Shirts", with quotes intact. Only suitable for tourists to wear. No local would be caught dead in them.

Here on the mainland, I wear my "Hawaiian Shirts" every day, and on days with hot weather, I also wear cargo shorts and Keen sandals. I wouldn't want to work any place that would not allow me to wear the clothes that make me feel comfortable.

I wonder if they're a separate parallel development, or if they were introduced at some point.

Those are awesome -- they don't seem to be as common now, but you still sometimes see older Filipino gentlemen wearing them on "dress-up" occasions.

Usually I made do with Tommy Bahamas.

I can understand this; at the same time, from my perspective, people use it to refer to the geographical state. So, not refering to a people at all, but a source of origin. Kind of like how I don’t assume Americans eat American food; i just assume I can find it in America.

That said, I did learn they are called aloha shirts and will make an effort to use that instead.

I can't change the way English itself works so there will always be that meaning, but to anyone from Hawaii, that distinction reminds us that native Hawaiians are distinct from the people of Hawaii today.

The Hawaiian culture has had its fair share of erasure and suppression. To make the distinction is an attempt to honor and remember the unique identity of native Hawaiians.

I'm not sure people outside of Hawaii mistakenly link the "Hawaiian shirt" to _native_ Hawaiian culture. (The "native" modifier is key here for clear discussion.)

Instead, "Hawaiian shirt" is more innocently used as "a shirt common in the geographical place of Hawaii". If you really tried to get outsiders to picture a _native_ Hawaiian culture, they might imagine shirtless Polynesian people like these images.[1] Those people are not wearing the touristy floral printed shirts that are sold as "Hawaiian shirts".

>The Hawaiian culture has had its fair share of erasure and suppression. To make the distinction is an attempt to honor and remember the unique identity of native Hawaiians.

I'm still confused why the label "Hawaiian shirt" is erasing _native_ Hawaiian culture.

If Europeans choose to label what USA citizens call "football" as "American football", they do not imply that everybody links these images[2] to _native_ American culture. No matter how many times Europeans repeat the phrase "American football", these images of native Americans[3] will always be a separate and preserved concept in their minds.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=polynesian+people&source=lnm...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=nfl+football&source=lnms&tbm...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=native+americans&source=lnms...

My point of erasure relates to making the use of Hawaiian as a noun specifically relating to anything native Hawaiian.

The football thing doesn't feel entirely on point for me, an analogy of Europeans seeing Tex-Mex and calling it Mexican food seems closer to the idea. It is technically right, but some people from Mexico would disagree with that being _real_ Mexican food.

http://www.waimea.com/people.html

So it's not automatic that this particular wave of settlers uniquely deserves to be called "Hawaiian".

By the time of Kamehameha, I was taught there was a unified monolithic Hawaiian culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_and_settlement_of_Ha...

Does it actually matter whose ancestors colonized first? What's the difference between Hawaii's colonization by ethnic Tahitians and North America's colonization by ethnic English?

The distinction of Hawaiian in reference to native people is a only made off the islands. To anyone from Hawaii or familiar with it calling it a Hawaiian shirt literally is wrong in our understanding of the word.

To try and spread that understanding of Hawaiian as reference to native peoples is to spread the knowledge that Hawaii is a multiethnic place with distinct native culture alongside its American, Asian and other Polynesian influences.

Well, 8 billion people live outside the islands. Their use of the word will prevail for an object that's available everywhere in the world.

The AP's style guide uses Hawaiian as an adjective.

It is a messy thing when typical ways of speaking English conflict with nuances.

And additionally better isn't always the most succinct. I use Hawaii resident or kamaaina to say I'm from Hawaii, I don't call myself Hawaiian.

The person I first responded to called the shirt 'as genuinely Hawaiian...', which while true to describe its geographic origin, carries a different connotation. I think I made that point clear.

I don't think we'll get too much more understanding arguing points of grammar, you have a fair point with using Hawaiian as adjective. Thanks for the discussion.

Well, they wear a lot in Hawaii, so... Native Hawaiian culture didn't stop with Columbus...

Even if so (and I think that's iffy), “primarily” is not the same as “exclusively”.

I think it's very Hawaiian, and should be interpreted as a celebration. Then again, I'm just a Haole with a penchant for comfy fun shirts.

Ideology seems to be increasingly creeping into conversations here (not pointed at you, just saying in general).

Indeed it is:

Ethnicity: noun, plural eth·nic·i·ties.

- an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.

- ethnic traits, background, allegiance, or association

> Hawaiian is used in specific contexts in Hawaii and using it to describe a specific type of shirt is not one of them.

Is it not unique (in origin) to Hawaiian culture?

> It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with accuracy and respect for a group of people.

That you think this has anything to do with "respect" is precisely the problem I'm talking about. It's a style of shirt. Even if I didn't like the style, how in god's name does one interpret this as "not respecting" Hawaiians as a group?

So that makes a case for naming them differently.

Hawaiian shirt is a crude marketing term that's only used outside of the original audience of the item.

I'm an Iowan, and I don't need you to tell me what something I grew up with actually is. Not to come off as rude.

The Hawaiian/Aloha shirt is a knockoff of a European design.

>So maybe give those of the originating culture the benefit of the doubt.

The originating culture was European. The Hawaiians "culturally appropriated" the European shirt design and made something new and awesome from it, so awesome that it then became popular outside the islands.

That's how it works.

But it'd be like if you grew up buying "Mexican hats" from Walmart. It's a sombrero - they have other hats in Mexico, including hats they came up with, so your terminology is bad even if it's been working for you.

[1] I've lived in Hawaii most my life and this is my experience.