Knickers (was: They're as self-centered as we are!)

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

How old is the “pants”=”underpants” usage?

Assuming it is WWI and before, it would give more immediacy and cogency to
“get into her pants” from a time when women didn’t wear trousers as
regularly as they do nowadays.

 

 

Seán Fitzpatrick

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
I blame Global Warming.
 <http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/> http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Damien Hall [mailto:djh514 at YORK.AC.UK] 
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 5:36 AM
Subject: Knickers (was: They're as self-centered as we are!)

 

Larry said:

 

>Good point.  The "his knickers" hits (175K) mostly involve getting

>his knickers in a twist or a knot, with (presumably) metaphoric

>transfer of the kind attested in the NYT book review and letters

>(with the additional insult typically invoked by reference to males

>with female-appropriate terms).

 

Yes, indeed, men can get their knickers in a twist. For me, now, that idiom

is semantically bleached, so it doesn't occur to me if I ever hear it that

_knickers_ is actually a female-associated term (though of course I can't

speak directly for other speakers of BrE). Rather, to me, anyone who's

accused of getting their knickers in a twist is being accused of being

childish about something and making more of a fuss than it deserves. It

seems therefore equally insulting to men and to women by now (which is to

say, really more patronising than insulting).

 

>"knickers" = 'underpants' (for which I'm led to believe the standard

>British locution is "pants", which no doubt leads to some robust

>dialect clashes with U.S. "pants" = 'trousers')

 

Yes; I should have put brackets around the _under_ morpheme. And, yes, that

does lead to some very (um-)robust confusions in dialect clashes. Since I

am married to an American and share my office with a different (but still

female) one, I have learned to avoid them for the most part, but people who

are less experienced have not been so fortunate in my direct experience ...

 

Thus Ben:

 

>To quote Samuel Butler:

> 

>"Thou callest trousers 'pants', whereas I call them 'trousers',

>Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!"

> 

>See: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002897.html

 

Couldn't have put it better myself ...

 

Damien

 

--

Damien Hall

 

University of York

Department of Language and Linguistic Science

Heslington

YORK

YO10 5DD

UK

 

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