by Gregor 14 Replies latest jw friends
Wonder why certain garments are referred to in the plural, pants, underwear, trousers? Why not a pair of shirts? "I put on a fresh pair of shirts this morning" Or why not say "I spilled coffee on my pant and I need to change it"
Come on people, let's get our priorities in order, these are the kind of things we should be discussing instead of being enslaved by a mind control cult.
I'm gonna google that
PAIR OF PANTS
[Q]From Corey and his mother; related questions came from Linda Rodgers, Peter C Mann, and others: “Speaking of pants, as you were the other week, my 14-year-old asked me why, if you put on a pair of pants, you don’t also put on a pair of shirts? Can you illuminate the matter for us?”
[A] People do ask the most intriguing questions.
I’ve looked at the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which suggests that the form pair of pants was standard right from its earliest use. Indeed, words for nether garments all seem to have been commonly plural throughout their history, often prefixed by pair of ...: breeches, shorts, drawers, panties, tights, knickers (short for knickerbockers), and trousers.
Pants is short for pantaloons, also plural, which in their very earliest incarnations were nearer stage tights; their name comes from a Venetian character in Italian commedia dell’arte who was the butt of the clown’s jokes and who always appeared as a foolish old man wearing pantaloons. Commentators referred to them when they first appeared as being a combination of breeches and stockings. Later the word was applied to fashionable tight-fitting trousers.
Trousers came into the language in the seventeenth century from the Gaelic trowse, a singular word for a slightly different garment rather more like breeches; a later version of it was trews, taken to be a plural because of the final s. Breeches has been plural throughout its recorded history, a long one (it dates from at least the year 1200).
According to several costume historians who have helped me with this reply, the answer to all this conventional plurality is very simple. Before the days of modern tailoring, such garments, whether underwear or outerwear, were indeed made in two parts, one for each leg. The pieces were put on each leg separately and then wrapped and tied or belted at the waist (just like cowboys’ chaps). The plural usage persisted out of habit even after the garments had become physically one piece. However, a shirt was a single piece of cloth, so it was always singular.
It’s worth noting that the posher type of tailor, such as in London’s Savile Row, still often refers to a trouser and the singular pant and tight are not unknown in clothing store terminology in America—so the plural is not universal.
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2006.
All rights reserved. Contact the author for reproduction requests.
Comments and feedback are always welcome.
Page created 28 April 2001.
its not complicated. the "pants" (short for pantaloons) refers to the legging portion of a long garment. These were not always attached as they are now in one piece but were like stockings or socks separate, hence a pair of them make a complete set. the usage continued even after the leg portions became permantent parts of the uniform garment. - eduardo
my 14-year-old asked me why
I think, Gregor, that the point is that you think like a 14yo
Young at heart and mind?
Misty
So, how about 'scissors'? Does anyone say "Don't run with the scissor"?
This is all very interesting and all but what I want to know is: Why does the washing machine always eat only one sock in each pair? Very annoying.
GGG
The first thing we learned in the Navy, "You wear trousers. Pants are drawers or panties."
For that matter, why do we drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?
Curious minds want to know these things.
Sherry
I was thinking the same thing about Big Foot. Why is he called Big Foot? Is a colony of Big Foot not a Big Feet? What about baby Big Foots? Are they Little Feet? And what about insurance claims? If your car stalled out in the woods and Big Foot attacked it, how would you prove it to the insurance company? sammieswife.
