Query -- Scantily Clad

[Kathleen E. Miller]

Hello All.

Thanks to the mud-wrestling commercial - I have this assignment.

The early hits in the New York Times from the mid-to-late 1800's are
literal. Poor, destitute children with not enough clothes on for the cold
were "scantily clad." In 1861, a "recruit who was scantily clad for a sea
voyage..." [NY Times]; in 1885, "a sandy waste, which is scantily clad with
herbage." [OED].

Then, in 1897, "Father Adam and Mother Eve in their most primitive
condition would blush for the unloveliness of their scantily clad
descendants,..." about a day at the beach in Atlantic City.

After that the "pejorative" sense proliferates, but is still generic.

Now to modern day:

I conducted a very unscientific experiment using Nexis:

Plug in "scantily clad" in the last 60 days (90 won't work because it gives
more than 1,000 and Nexis is persnickety about that) and you get 675 hits.
Subtract women from the equation - it drops to 295.

Similarly, - girl* drops to 207, -dancer* to 190, -waitress* to 173, -woman
to 137, -cheerleader* to 131, - female* to 119, -babe* to 115, -virgin* to
111, -model* to 99, -chick* to 98. ["scantily clad superwomen amazons", and
"scantily clad bimbos" were in there, but didn't cross my mind when
conducting the search].

Of the 98 remaining [fudge factor, for some reason Nexis only gave me 95
when I downloaded] only 25 referred to something other than women, ie. men,
feet, "spring breakers," tuna, etc. Some of the references to the "scantily
clad" man are pejorative, most are literal, "scantily clad man found dead
in home" sort of thing. Several show use of the idiotic phrase "scantily
clad clothing."

So the question is, how [and when, if anyone has an idea] did this
completely innocuous phrase which meant someone just didn't have enough
clothes on, move to a moral judgement about the amount of clothing someone
was wearing, to a pejorative statement almost completely reserved for females?

Any suggestions, other examples of such phrases, comments about my being
off-base, miraculous answers - welcome.

Thanks,

Kathleen E. Miller
Research Assistant to William Safire
(who, without my huge wool/leather coat, would be "scantily clad" for our
29 degrees)
The New York Times