Dungarees

[Jonathan Lighter]

For the sake of completeness: waaaaay back in the late '50s or very early
'60s I became familiar with the term "Levis" only because the NBC  series
_Death Valley Days_, which told only true (well, truthy) stories about the
early West ran an episode about a young guy trying to make it in the
high-powered world of Gold Rush fashion.  At the end, the host,  "the Old
Ranger," revealed that the young entrepeneur was none other than Levi
Strauss, "whose product is known as 'Levis' to this very day."

I remember thinking something along the lines of "known by who(m)"?

Even now I think of "Levis" as a literary - or at least televisual - term

JL


On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Dungarees
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>        I've been surprised at how familiar the term seems to everybody.
> To me, "dungarees" is a purely literary term.  In fact, I was hazy on
> its exact meaning until this online discussion.  When I was growing up
> in Kentucky in the 1960s and 1970s, we called them jeans or blue jeans
> or, more generically, pants.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Janet Marting
> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 3:24 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Dungarees
>
> As someone born and reared in Vermont (in the 50s and 60s), I grew up
> calling denim pants "dungarees."  When I moved to Colorado for grad
> school in the mid-70s and tried to buy a pair in the stores, no one knew
> what I was talking about.  In grad school (in Michigan) later in the 70s
> and 80s, the term was Levis or jeans.  My students claim they don't have
> a specific word for the article of clothing, despite most of the
> students wearing Levi's, jeans, dungarees, denims--call them what you
> will.
>
> Jinny Marting
> University of Akron
>
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