All fur coat and nae knickers
- is a saying much used in Edinburgh. It is used of people who put on an outward show. It is alternatively expressed as pianos and kippers suggesting the clinging on to appearances of people in straightened circumstances; they may have a piano in the drawing room but they eat the cheapest of food when unobserved. Formerly, this was sometimes directed at ladies of the middle class area of Edinburgh known as Morningside, which even had its own genteel accent but, as a result of two world wars and a changing economy, had a high proportion of single or widowed women living on ever more modest incomes. While trying to keep up standards can hardly be classed as a deadly sin, James Carmichael’s Collection of Proverbs (a1628) maintains: It is pride but proffitt to weir gloves and ga barfet.