"I have a hankering," wrote a man named Lin Yutang, "to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking." As it turns out, clear thinking isn’t the only thing being strangled when men wear neckties. Think jugular vein. A recent article in the British Journal of Ophthalmology reports that tight neckties increase the risk of glaucoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness. A tight necktie can evidently increase blood pressure by constricting the jugular vein, causing a backup of blood to the eye that can damage the optic nerve. If men ever needed an excuse to throw away their neckties, this is it. Neckties in men’s wardrobes are a prime example of the worn-out expression, "It’s always been done this way." The "four-in-hands" and bow ties worn today are almost identical to the neckwear worn first in the United States back in the 1870s. By comparison, if women would still be wearing things dating back to that time, we would have closets filled with whalebone corsets, long dresses with bustles and hoop skirts. Today’s neckties are descendants of ascots, cravats and other men’s neckwear too difficult to spell or pronounce and dating back to the 1700s. In light of the news about neckties, men might question the motives of family members who repeatedly give them ties for Christmas and birthdays. Neckties rarely wear out and they are truly gifts that keep on giving. One humorist once observed, "Nothing lasts as long as a necktie you don’t like." That’s particularly true if the ties in question reveal holiday trees with real flashing lights, hula dancers or neon pink flamingos. For every man in this country there must be at least "one ugly tie in the back of the closet" story. The ties are never thrown away, perhaps because of unspoken fears that the givers might find out or that the neckwear police might show up at the front door. Neckties are difficult to knot and they must be terribly uncomfortable because men are seen loosening them whenever they can. Ties are often unsightly stain traps for foods that might otherwise plummet from fork to floor unnoticed. Surely, with the exception of women’s pantyhose, no other garment has been cursed as often as men’s neckties. This world might be a better place without neckties. Of course, we would no longer be able to sing in church, "Blest be the Tie that Binds." Now it’s all about the tie that blinds. Given the link between possible blindness and tight neckwear, we might have negative reactions to, and different interpretations of, everyday expressions — "tie-dyed," "to tie one on," "tie-breakers" and "to risk one’s neck." A necktie-less world might also be safer. Dangling ties are undoubtedly dangerous for men working near moving parts of heavy machinery or restoring old wringer washers. When A.E. Housman wrote "Shropshire Lad" in 1896, he had another neckwear in mind, but it was deadly nevertheless — "And naked in the hangman’s noose, the morning clocks will ring a neck God made for other use than strangling in a string." The comparison is a natural for an eventual revolution against men’s neckwear — a hangman’s noose and a tight necktie.
