OT: Public Schools

[zfshiruba]

No: HPFGUIDX 187822

> Potioncat:
> I agree with Carol...and with Geoff.
> (wishy-washy, that's me!)
> No, seriously, I think the over all impression of the uniform--as we experience it--brings to mind a prison suit. Unpleasant smell, wet, wrinkled grey clothing---yuch. It is a drab contrast to Dudley's. Add to the  name, "Stonewall High" which sounds to me like "high stone wall" and prison just looms over it all.
> 
> On the other hand, Harry knows his uniform isn't going to look like the others, nor will it fit him and grey is a perfectly nice color for suits and skirt sets. 
> 
> But as we read this incident, the impression forms even as we move on to the next part of the story.
> 
> Potioncat, who would rather wear the Stonewall uniform than the Smeltings one.

zfshiruba: 
It shows just how much of an American I can be sometimes that I really didn't pick up on the "stone wall" connotation until the prison comparison.
In the States, or at least, my part of the States Stonewall High would just mean that its in the south and your school teams are probably the Generals.

Do comprehensive schools wear uniforms then? Speaking of Dudley's uniform, I can understand the Dursleys' blindness but is everyone who goes to school with him blind too? Or does pride in tradition overrule basic embarrassment? Is tradition or going against tradition more common in the books?