another euphemism

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:31 PM -0400 6/16/10, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>1996 September 26 was the airdate of a Friends episode that included
>the term "go commando" according to one website.

I remember it from Seinfeld, which would have been from the same
period.  I don't know which was first.

LH

>Here is an excerpt
>and a link from the website:
>
>Friends Episode 3.02
>The One Where No One's Ready
>
>Ross: Okay, now hold on. Joey, why can't you just wear the underwear
>you're wearing now?
>Joey: Because, um, I'm not wearing any underwear now.
>Ross: Okay, then why do you have to wear underwear tonight?
>Joey: It's a rented tux, Okay. I'm not gonna go commando in another
>man's fatigues.
>
>Credits
>Written by Ira Ungerleider
>Directed by Gail Mancuso
>Peter Dennis as Sherman Whitfield
>Aired 09/26/96, 12/19/96, 7/3/97, 3/25/2004
>
>http://www.friends-tv.org/zz302.html
>
>The ADS archive contains a thread on this topic. Here is an excerpt
>from one message:
>
>Subject:         BRITNEY COMMANDO!!
>From:   Jonathan Lighter
>Reply-To:       American Dialect Society <[log in to unmask]>
>Date:   Sat, 2 Dec 2006 05:21:50 -0800
>
>LA-LA LAND (Dec. 2).--Britney Spears, fresh from her Las Vegas BIMBO
>SUMMIT!  with  Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, has been photographed
>emerging from a limousine clearly wearing no underwear.
>
>   The story, first reported by the Fox News Channel, was accompanied
>by the on-screen caption  "BRITNEY COMMANDO!"  (To "go commando" is
>teenspeak, documented by linguist Pamela Munro and others, meaning "to
>wear no underwear.")
>
>   The phrase was popularized some years ago by an episode of the
>popular NBC series _Friends_.
>
>
>On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Lisa Galvin <lisagal23 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Lisa Galvin <lisagal23 at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: another euphemism
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  =20
>>  I am not familiar with the term "rocking" in that sense=2C but I think the =
>>  first time I personally heard the phrase "going commando" was on an episode=
>>   of the TV show Friends=2C so that would put it somewhere in the mid-to lat=
>>  e 90s? No idea where/when it actually started=2C though.
>>
>>  =20
>>
>>  Lisa Galvin
>>
>
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