Rules vs. Rules of thumb

An example: A rule (or convention) might be (right or wrong) that a jacket should cover your butt. However that rule does not give you the perfect jacket length, only its minimum value. Trying to find the perfect jacket length one might use the rule of thumb (an advice, good or bad) that jacket length should be determined by splitting the distance from the floor to the jacket collar in half. Although a good starting point, the style conscious gentleman might very well deviate from this rule of thumb and achieve an even better result.

I think style discussions would perhaps benefit from making it clear whether we differ regarding if a rule is right or wrong or if an advice is good or bad. Of course, if one think a rule is wrong (not an absolute rule) one might still hold it as a pretty good rule of thumb (or advice).

Yours,
Mr. Tweed

This post was inspired by a discussion at AAAC started by CuffDaddy.