these underwear

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

in an ad from 10percent.com (purveys of goods to lgb folk):
----
This is the sexiest way to wear your iPod - in your underwear! These
hot new underwear from Intimo Play are called the iBoxer. They come
equipped with a pocket that is designed to hold your iPod! Whether
you're a 30GB, 60GB, 1GB or a Nano, these underwear will hold your
package!
----

(illustrated by cute young guy in nothing but an iBoxer, jamming to
his iPod.)

yes, "these underwear", indeed "these underwear... are".  a small
rash of asterisks appeared on my forehead.

then i recalled a nice  posting by mark liberman on Language Log:

   ML, 2/6/05: Syntactic and notional number:
   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001876.html

in which cites of both "these underwear" and "this underpants" were
provided.  sigh.

arnold