ABSTRACT
The imagery of clothing draws on two sources, namely: ostentatious dress, and the rags and tatters of the poor; and through these categories, fundamental issues concerning the use and abuse of language are addressed. The two main bugbears of the late Tudor period, namely, the unstable coinage and the fluctuations in the cloth trade, furnished the debate on language with a series of tropes. Like coinage, language was based on convention, arbitrary in nature and generated through usage. Language, coinage and clothing were three social institutions which lent themselves to discussion one in terms of the other but the choice of the Tudor proto-linguists to manipulate the terms reflects positively on the assimilation of the concept of language as central to and reflecting human society. The moral implications of incorrect or improper linguistic usage are also addressed in terms of clothing, linking economic well-being with the moral standards of the nation.
