What is tall?

Height Is all relative. No matter how tall you are, there will always be someone or something taller or shorter than you are.

"Tall" is a description
As a descriptive term, tall is very subjective and relies on the context in which it is used. Even a 5ft9 man can be considered "tall" when he is surrounded by people shorter than he is, but that still doesn't negate the fact that in the United States he would be a statistically 'average' height for a man.

"Tall" becomes an identity
As a description then, the label "tall" is incumbent upon context. But what about "tall" as an identity? As an identity, it would mean that a person must come to the conclusion that "essentially I am tall regardless of context." It's a subtle difference between a label and an identity because one can always say, "I am tall" and mean either application. To consider the label tall as an essentialist identity, one has to identify strongly with a taller body to such an extent that (s)he would gain a deeper sense of belonging from other tall people.

It's a tall thing, you wouldn't understand
Perhaps the seeds of a tall identity are planted everytime someone feels a deep level of frustration at the disconnect between their taller body and a world made by and for other body types. Height is only a factor in a limited range of interaction. Clothes shopping seems to be the biggest one tall people complain about most. If you can go into any store in the mall and find things to wear, then you're not essentially tall even if you like to use the label 'tall' to describe yourself.

Self Concept Fluctuates
How a person relates to his or her height changes over time with changes in lifestyle, maturity, self esteem and self concept. A healthy posture might be anathema to a tall teen that just wants to blend in but as a tall adult, the same person will stand up straight, tall and proud.

Statistically "Tall"
Because of the bell curve used to compare height, men 6 foot to 6ft3 are considered "tall". Judging by government safety regulations and industry's standardized sizing, everyone 6ft4 and over is considered statistically irrelevant. When allocating space for car, bus, train and plane passengers, and considering life-jackets or other emergency equipment, people over 6ft4 are ignored completely.

Auxology
The emerging science of auxology is the study of human growth.

• According to THIS ARTICLE about auxology, becoming taller means a whole lot more than seeing better at football matches...

• Americans, for nearly two centuries, lived as the world's tallest human beings, now they are among the shortest population in the world. THIS ARTICLE explores an auxologist's work into finding out why.

• According to the auxologists behind THIS ARTICLE, Americans are no longer the tallest in the world due to greater social inequality, an inferior health-care system, and fewer social safety nets in the United States.

How do you measure?
There seems to ba a wide spread or systematic tendency to overestimate height deviations above the mean. This has been widely observed in people's misestimation of the height of very tall people-- a 6'6" man is thought to be "seven feet tall", or a 7'1" basketball player is said to be "eight feet tall".

• MEASURE UP: This ancient measuring principle has been used successfully to determine height. Call it an old fashioned way to measure up...

• MEASURE UP SHOES: This handy applicationis a quick way for international shoe shoppers or aficionados to compare shoe sizes between regional differences. A JavaScript-capable browser is required. You just enter a value into any field and the remaining fields are automatically updated.

Tall Stereotypes
Many stereotypes about what it means to be tall are propelled by supposedly "scientific" studies that purport to compare tall people with short people. The bulk of these articles fail to mention what the researchers are using to define as "tall" more--»

Height Calculator
How we stack up against others is a key component of calculating height.

• FAMOUS PEOPLE'S HEIGHT CALCULATOR: This is a really amusing Web Site run by a tall guy called, Dan. It's basically an archived list of famous people and their heights..

• AVERAGE HEIGHT CALCULATOR: This is a great page created by a tall guy called, Arjan. It's a little unnerving to discover that I'd have to round up over 10,000 Dutch men just to have a 50% chance of meeting someone taller than me and that it's so rare in the US that he didn't even bother tabulating it.