N is for Nobby

I had a tough time with a slang term for N. I was unimpressed with some of the words and phrases I found and so I settled for nobby. It’s one of the few words on the list so far that I have never used personally and can’t recall ever having heard it used before either.

I am not a fashionable person. My sister threatens me all the time about submitting my name to that make-over show. I wear things that are comfortable, clean, maybe wrinkled, but decent. I wore professional style clothes when I taught but I was able to keep it to a business casual level: khakis, polos, and a few skirts and blouses.

Since I’ve been unemployed, my wardrobe shrank quite a bit and I tended towards my comfort clothes: jeans and tee shirts. Looking decent is different to me than looking fashionable and for as long as I can remember decent won over fashion any day of the week.

When I was hired a few weeks back, I had a quite the panic attack because I really didn’t have anything left in my closet that could pass muster for professional. The polos and khakis I wore in my last years of teacher are what I wore to run around town in, to pick up bags of potting soil at Home Depot, to bake in – do I need to even say how grungy they have become?

Dragging Ashleigh and Cyra with me to the mall to pick out a few outfits to get me through the first few months of the new job was critical. I know what I am comfortable in, but I have no clue as to what might go together – and have you seen the spring colors? Neon pink and orange, lime greens and Caribbean blues. And what happened to just plain solids? Everything is patterned; everything has doo-dads and froo-froo on them. I can’t stand the stuff!! I wanted to find plain things that would easily mix and match. Ashleigh and Cyra insisted on pops of color and no khakis!

An hour later, with Ashleigh and Cyra by my side, I managed to pick out a number of interchangeable outfits. And I kept within my limited budget. I won’t claim to be nobby yet.

Now if only I could find out where Ashleigh hid my khakis.

Nobby is an adjective from the 1850s that means fashionable.

Example: Nora wasn’t especially nobby, but nearly everyone noticed when she started wearing shoes from Nine West.

  

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