Research

[Sally Donlon]

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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