Its still as weired rule - think about it, why is hat the only garment that is 'rude'. Noone would get offended at yoy wearing a fur coat indoors, youd just look stupid
It signals that you are uncomfortable, that you intend to leave soon, essentially that you don't enjoy being here with me.
I remember some people being quite insistent that I should take my coat/jacket off, they say something like "make yourself comfortable" but I understand it more as a polite way of saying "take off your coat, you asshole". I guess the same can be said of hats.
Interesting. Never in a million years would I have taken that meaning from it. I would just think that the person is cold.
A hat signifies status. Consider the top hat - it signifies wealth. Or the general's hat - think of Wellington and Napoleon. They signify authority.
It's inappropriate to walk into someone's parlour as a guest, while disporting the mark of your superiority. Baring your head signifies humility. It's just polite.
In the past, maybe. I don't think it does so much now (at least in my part of the US). If it signifies anything besides aesthetics, it's signifying that the person is part of some defined group. Status doesn't enter into it.
> while disporting the mark of your superiority.
So, keeping your "low status" hat on would be OK? (I'm assuming that there is such a thing -- that some hats are "high status" implies that there exists the opposite).
Baring your head is the sign of humility. It doesn't matter which hat you have to doff.
In the UK, a "low status" hat would have been be a flat-hat, or flat cap. It used to be a worker's hat; it was also worn by countrymen - farmers, country landowners, gamekeepers and the like - but not in town.
Nowadays I often see expensive tweed flat-hats on the heads of fashionable, well-to-do townies. To me, that look is poncey.
Besides, the rules about wearing a hat inside can be quite complex: women have to wear a had while men have to take it off (traditional church service in Europe); high ranking men wearing their hats, while lower ranking men have to take them off; petitioners removing their hat in front of the benefactor ...