'Get into her pants' (was: Knickers)

[Garson O'Toole]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: 'Get into her pants' (was: Knickers)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Thus Seán: (sorry about the HTML; I'm not entirely able to decode it, so I
>> haven't cleaned it all up):
>>
>> "How old is the 'pants'=3D'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."
>>
>> I agree. 'Get into her pants' is common in BrE too, so it had never even
>> occurred to me that 'pants' in that phrase might mean 'trousers' and not
>> 'undergarments'. I suppose it depends on the side of the Atlantic where
>> 'Get into her pants' can be found earliest.
>
> Earliest cite in OED3 is from _The Gallery_ by American novelist John
> Horne Burns:
>
> ---
> 1946 J. H. BURNS Gallery (1965) 7 You automatically assume that every
> GI wants to get into your pants.
> ---
>
> _The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang_ marks "get into someone's
> pants" as U.S. usage and gives a 1952 cite from another American
> novelist:
>
> ---
> George Mandel, _Flee the Angry Strangers_ (1952), p. 220
> I've been in more guy's pants than you could count.
> ---
>
> Google Books gives more U.S. sources:
>
> ---
> Cornelia Sussman, _Teach the Angry Spirit‎_ (1949), p. 33
> "I wouldn't go out with one of those squares!" she yelled at Mercy.
> "All they want is to get into your pants!"
> ---
> Robert Carse, _The Beckoning Waters‎_ (1953), p. 348
> Then these Frenchies, they didn't get into your pants.
> ---
> Garet Rogers (pseud.), _Prisoner in Paradise‎_ (1954), p. 298
> Just because you can't get into Isolde Bootmaker's pants doesn't give
> you the right to treat me this way.
> ---
> James Michener, _Rascals in Paradise‎_ (1957), p. 352
> Doc bet me a gold cup that I would not get into her pants.
> ---
> Richard Bankowsky, _A Glass Rose‎_ (1958), p. 114
> Maybe you didn't like the color of his eyes or he was pimply-faced,
> and in a weak moment, you let him get into your pants.
> ---
> Frank Yerby, _The serpent and the Staff‎_ (1958), p. 68
> And the next time you aim to get into Hester's frilly pants, you let me know.
> ---
>
> (These are all displayed in snippet view, so the usual caveats apply.)
>
> --Ben Zimmer

Thanks for your efforts finding these citations. The earliest
apparently is from 1946. Using Google I may have found cites from 1937
and 1939 in the Loislaw Legal Research database. I am not familiar
with this database and do not know if the dates are reliable:

Texas Case Law - STEPTOE v. STATE, 133 Tex. Crim. 194 (1937)
No. 19109. Delivered June 25; 1937. Rehearing Denied November 3, 1937.
Appellant had his hand around her holding her when he told her he
wanted to get into her pants. She was trying to get away. Lucille
Hopkins, the girl who ...

Texas Case Law - ESCOBAR v. STATE, 138 Tex. Crim. 71 (1939)
No. 20261. Delivered April 5, 1939. Rehearing Denied December 13, 1939.
We had been loving one another up about two weeks ago and I tried to
get into her pants, but she said let's let it go for a while. And she
got mad at me. ...

Verifying these hits is a challenge because the database charges
individuals $47.99 per day. Someone with access to Loislaw via an
institutional subscription might be able to verify the information.
Garson

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