Research

[Jonathan Lighter]

Tanya,  it takes a long, long time for  common word (like "trousers") to become obsolete (i.e., to be fully replaced), even in speech. Google searches may surprise you. What's more, there are probably a dozen reasons why any particular word or phrase should become obsolete.

  Maybe something that was common in Shakespeare's time but is virtually unknown
  today would be your best bet.

  JL

Sally Donlon <sod at LOUISIANA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sally Donlon
Subject: Re: Research
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Tanya,

I don't know of many cognitive linguists who would say that "pants"
have replaced "trousers" in American English, but rather that "pants"
fills a much more general, and therefore frequent, slot in semantic
space. Just yesterday my daughter and I scoured the local shopping
mall searching for "trousers," meaning we were trying to find "pants"
with a certain set of design features: that clasped at one's actual
waist, had a zippered fly, were full and even rather blouson through
the thighs, and tapered slightly toward the ankle. Virtually every
fashion retailer understood what I meant when I used the word
"trousers," which we looked for in the "pants" section of the store.

sally



On Nov 1, 2006, at 11:16 AM, Tanya Boettcher wrote:

> I am an English major at Kennesaw State University, and I am in
> need of some help. I am in an American English class, and a
> project for that class is to discover why certain words have seemed
> to have disappeared in from main stream vocabulary. For example,
> most people would say that they were pants instead of trousers. It
> is almost as if the word "pants" has replaced the word "trousers."
> My problem is that I have no idea were to look for information
> regarding this phenomenon. If anybody has any suggestions as to
> how I might go about researching this project I would truly
> appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
> Tanya Boettcher
>
>
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