i have been thinking a lot of ins and outs lately..
like the IN crowd (call it the A list or the GOP or what ever)
and people who are out of bounds..

and about words we use to define IN (and how one gets IN) and the words associated with rituals for being in..

every society has IN's.. you get born IN to one family, but have to Marry to get In to another family (and get In-laws)

you can join a church, but you have to be 'confirmed' in some sort of ritual to become an full adult member

people who don't behave as we expect, are called out of bounds (balls get labeled out of bounds too, in games)
unless they are really bad, and then they become outlaws

We live in a society, but labels others people as being 'tribal' --(i.e., afghanies, and their leaders, who end up getting called tribal lords)
but we recognize clíches, and clubs and organizations, and we all understand what i meant by Alist--(how is being a member of The 400 differ from being a member of a tribe?)
what are there specific characterisits (with specific words) that make a group --and what words are used to name specific rituals that mark a persons admission or rejections from a specific group..
(i have used of the type words i mean----words like:
A-list
confirmation
outlaw
tribal
society
The 400
and of course, In and out --
-this idea of being In or out, has come up on knitting boards (which style of knitting (or for that matter, the idea of knitting) is IN,
and here (in a PM about poetry) and today's NYTimes crossword puzzle titled IN Pairs, even Kathy Griffin has an artilce in today NYTStyle section about not being IN (and she claims its better to be on the worst dressed (celebrity list) than to be ignored--the idea of bad press is better than none--at the same time she champions herself as being the biggest 'star' on the C-list!)

and i was wondering about words used to define rituals that get a person in --or that mark them as out. and boundry words too, if you want!
(and what ritual do you think of, or recognize as being modern day 'rights of passage' IN to adult society--in what are they called?)


my other obsession