There is an Angela Thirkell wartime Barsetshire book in which a woman wanders around in a boiler suit, which people keep commenting on, "though why a boiler suit, I do not know," which I read long before I knew what a boiler suit (or for that matter a boiler) was. I was picturing a skirted suit made of boiled wool, which I thought might seem unpatriotic due to being associated with Austria. Come to think of it, we even had a boiler in our house, but we always just called it the furnace.