[bluetomcat]

A similar kind of formality used to be a thing in Western culture, at least up until the 1980s.

Watch any kind of TV show from back then and notice the formality in the clothing of presenters, the substantially more discernible pronunciation, the vocabulary. The cultural shift towards informality is a recent trend in the West.

[eesmith]

One should be careful basing observations on what is shown on TV. As an extreme example, it would suggest that most couples did not sleep on the same bed during the 1950s.

There was also a cultural fashion in the US to use a "Mid-Atlantic accent". Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent :

> The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent,[1][2][3] is a consciously acquired accent of English, intended to blend together the "standard" speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation. Spoken mostly in the early 20th century by Americans, it is not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, an affected set of speech patterns whose "chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[4] The accent is, therefore, best associated with the American upper class, theater, and film industry of the 1930s and 1940s,[5] largely taught in private independent preparatory schools especially in the American Northeast and in acting schools.[6] The accent's overall use sharply declined following the Second World War.

On the UK side of the Atlantic, the Received Pronunciation was considered the appropriate form of English in BBC broadcasts, leading to "BBC English", which again reflected upper class use. As I recall, it wasn't until the 1980s when BBC announcers were more free to use regional dialects.

So when you view history through TV, remember that you are also seeing it through a upper-class lens.

[ghaff]

That's true although professional dress is definitely more casual in the US (for the most part) than it was 20-30 years ago. When I started with a tech company in the mid-80s, suits were pretty much the norm for marketing and sales and even many in engineering. It would have been strange for the most part to, say, give a presentation at a conference without being dressed that way.

These days, in tech certainly but across many industries, "dressing up" is mostly an outlier.

[wil421]

I can remember my dad in the late 80s early 90s wearing a suit as an EE. Slowly it changed from suit to shirt and tie to no tie. Now it’s polo and jeans.

Many companies are trying to emulate west coast tech companies. Especially Silicon Valley. I’ve seen a lot of initiatives geared toward “millennials” in a couple big companies I worked at. Including getting rid of the khaki business casual.