APAD: men in suits

Meaning:                                                                       

    Businessmen/bureaucrats/soldiers and the like who follow convention and the

    company line. Also called just `suits'.                                    

                                                                               

Background:                                                                    

   The literal meaning, that is, males wearing suits has obviously been part of

   the language for as long as suits have. The phrase was first used with a    

   specific rather than general meaning to refer to US sports players - the    

   suits being the sporting gear. This usage is known since at least the 1930s -

   for example, this piece from The Ogden Standard-Examiner, April 1933:       

                                                                               

     "It is expected that around 80 participants will take the field Friday    

     afternoon. Ogden will probably lead the schools with close to 35 men in   

     suits while Davis and Weber, will run between 20 and 25 men apiece."      

                                                                               

   It isn't clear who first used the term `men in suits' to describe           

   conventional business people. John Lennon described the people who controlled

   The Beatles' financial interests as `men in suits'.                         

                                                                               

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]                                                  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                                               

It's a dissing term, although the literal meaning sounds neutral. The

neighborhood bookshop owner Kathleen Kelly in "You've Got Mail" shrugged off

with extra contempt Joe Fox, a multi-millionaire opening a big-box chain

bookstore nearby, as "nothing but a suit."

 

Garrison Keillor didn't seem to mind. "I'm a man in a suit now. I'm happy to be

a man in a suit" he blithely declared in a film about his show, A Prairie Home

Companion. But he's a humorist and should be understood backward.