ABSTRACT
A custom with a history that spans some period, typically several generations, is known as a tradition, a word that derives from a Latin verb meaning to hand over or convey. If in justifying (saying why one should retain) a practice or attitude, an appeal is made to the fact that it is a tradition, a long-standing custom, this will sound like a claim to little more than the sort of validity that a fashion or a rule of etiquette possesses: this is to be welcomed because people welcome it, or carried out because people carry it out. The appeal to tradition, however, may be seen to have more force than this. That people tend to accord more validity to a custom the longer they believe that custom to have been in force (handed down from their forebears) cannot be dismissed as a benighted response. What has been in effect for a long time is clearly something that people can live with, and it can to some extent be relied upon not to have untoward consequences.
