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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “John has always been a dyed-in-the-wool vinyl fan.” Dyed-in-the-wool? My comments: Here, dyed-in-the-wool means that John has always kept listening to vinyl records, those large flat discs that are rarely found in the market place today. Vinyl is short for polyvinyl, as vinyl discs are made from polyvinyl chloride. The young generation all listen to music from MP3 or, if you’re older than 30 years old, CD players. Most of them do at any rate and they’re forgiven for having not a clue what a vinyl disc is but, back in the day, before the advent of digital music in the afore-mentioned CD (compact disc) and MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer-3) formats. As a matter of fact, vinyl dominated the music-listening market until only the 1980s, when CDs took over. Nowadays, of course, MP3 is the thing. Oh, there were also the cassette tapes, which were popular during the 1960-1980s. However, to music aficionados like John, vinyl still sounds the best to the ear. Therefore, John has stuck with vinyl while technology has moved on. Dyed-in-the-wool means John probably will never change. Dyed-in-the-wool, you see, originally refers to one of the ways wool is dyed before it is woven into cloth. If it’s dyed after being woven into cloth, then the color can be uneven and fade easily. On the other hand, if the wool is dyed before being woven into cloth, then its color won’t fade because the dye is deeply engrained into each and every piece of thread. | 
