"Plain bays for Jenny's"?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Rank speculation only: "jennies" = "underwear" as a corruption of
>"chemise". Cf. "shimmey" shown under "chemise" in OED with "chemise"
>apparently taken as plural.

Let me clarify one point: my egregious speculation is that "jennies" here
meant "[womens'] underwear", not that it meant specifically "chemise". I
speculate that the word might be _etymologically_ from "chemise" (taken as
a plural). Very likely it's moot because my speculation is likely
worthless, but the idea would be as follows: "She was wearing only her
chemise" (for example) could be understood as "She was wearing only her
shemmies" or so, with "shemmy" or so understood to mean "undergarment".
Then the unfamiliar "shemmy" or so is taken as "jenny" (a 'default' female
name at the time, I think), imagined to denote "feminine item",
specifically "feminine undergarment".

What use is such a speculation? None, unless it helps in searching for
citations. In this case, I would search for alternative forms such as
"jemmies", "jinnies", "shimmies". I haven't found any of these myself, but
I don't have big databases like some folks have. I have found early
examples (ca. 1800) of "chemise" looking like a plural, but only a couple,
possibly simply sporadic errors.

-- Doug Wilson


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