In Russia, beard grows you

Some beards defy classification.Some are merely difficult to define because of the limitations of technology and time. For example, this Russian gentleman has some spectacular mutton chops.

Or are they?

Do those amazing wings growing on each side of his chin connect to his hairline with sideburns? If so, then these are mutton chops. If they also connect to the mustache then they are a subset of mutton chops called friendly mutton chops.

But what if they don't connect to his hair in front of his ears? What if the upper part of the cheeks where sideburns would go is clean shaven? It's difficult to tell from this photograph. If so, it might be classified as a hollywoodian except for the chin being clean shaven.

And what if the beard is not actually connected to the mustache. I can't even begin to determine how to classify that. "Freestyle" seems to be the convention in the modern taxonomy.

And the entirety of this confusion comes from the photograph. Were this gentleman standing before me, it would be easy to tell where there was hair and where there was not. It may be a little more difficult to classify but at least we would have a starting point

So, for simplicity, I shall declare that there is, in fact, hair in front of the ears and the mustache is connected to the beard, therefore: friendly mutton chops.

Cowlick

Oh, yea. He knows absolutely that he has it going on. From the assertive smirk to the massive shirt pin, from the goatee on his chin to the spectacular cowlick atop his head.

This man could probably not only convince you that the moon was made of a specific variation of cheese (similar to a North Wiltshire blue) but could also convince you to invest substantial funds in his soon-to-be-constructed cheese mine.

Chook chooka.

Jealous

"Have you ever seen so full and mighty a beard as this?"

Of course you haven't, because this is Sir Sanford Fleming, inventor of time!

OK, so he isn't a Time Lord and didn't actually invent time itself but he was instrumental in convening the International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington in 1884 and the subsequent establishment of global universal time. You see, it works like this: Local time is set by the sun. Noon when it reaches it's zenith. But move 20 miles west and the sun will reach it's zenith a little under 2 minutes later. Not a big deal when you can walk that far in a day but when you ride a train for a day, those miles and minutes can add up to a significant difference. There's a lot of math to be done to get the time correct and then everyone has to do it right, from the train conductor to the guy who sets the town clock tower and if those things don't match up, connections get missed, people are late and all of society breaks down into chaos and general panic.

Additionally, there's that pesky A.M. and P.M. thing. Fleming spent an uncomfortable night in a train station in Ireland because the schedule mixed those two things up. Fleming proposed both the 24 hour universal time clock and the standardized 24 hour time zones so that no one would have to muss their magnificent beards sleeping on a hard, wooden bench in a drafty station ever again. (At least, not because of time miscalculations. )

Thus, civilization was saved.

Bellingham’s Stimulating Onguent

Mad Doctor

"Mad" angry or "mad" crazy? Either way, I would not want this man as my physician.

He does, however, have a distinctive and impressive beard, so that should count for something.

The First Steampunk

The gears of progress are driven by inherently dangerous mechanical contraptions that often emit fine particulates and occasional high-velocity shrapnel so it is imperative that one wear sufficient ocular protective devices at all times so as to avoid unnecessary injury and inconvenient diminishment of vision.

And this gentleman is totally rocking the mad scientist vibe.

Definition

When I say the word "goatee", what springs to your mind? The mirror universe Mr. Spock from Star Trek? Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon? Perhaps you are thinking of Captain Jack Sparrow.

You would be incorrect for those beards are not goatees, though the modern media and contemporary colloquialism keeps calling them that. No, having a beard and mustache around your mouth not connected to sideburns is not a goatee.

This, my friends, is a goatee. A quintessential example of "a beard formed by hair grown only on the chin area." Add a mustache to the equation and, by definition, it is no longer a goatee.

So, now that today's lesson is over and you know what actually constitutes goatee, when someone says the word you will not embarass yourself by thinking of Tony Stark, you will be thinking of Norville Rogers.