another euphemism

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jun 16 20:31:39 UTC 2010


1996 September 26 was the airdate of a Friends episode that included
the term "go commando" according to one website. Here is an excerpt
and a link from the website:

Friends Episode 3.02
The One Where No One's Ready

Ross: Okay, now hold on. Joey, why can't you just wear the underwear
you're wearing now?
Joey: Because, um, I'm not wearing any underwear now.
Ross: Okay, then why do you have to wear underwear tonight?
Joey: It's a rented tux, Okay. I'm not gonna go commando in another
man's fatigues.

Credits
Written by Ira Ungerleider
Directed by Gail Mancuso
Peter Dennis as Sherman Whitfield
Aired 09/26/96, 12/19/96, 7/3/97, 3/25/2004

http://www.friends-tv.org/zz302.html

The ADS archive contains a thread on this topic. Here is an excerpt
from one message:

Subject:         BRITNEY COMMANDO!!
From:   Jonathan Lighter
Reply-To:       American Dialect Society <[log in to unmask]>
Date:   Sat, 2 Dec 2006 05:21:50 -0800

LA-LA LAND (Dec. 2).--Britney Spears, fresh from her Las Vegas BIMBO
SUMMIT!  with  Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, has been photographed
emerging from a limousine clearly wearing no underwear.

  The story, first reported by the Fox News Channel, was accompanied
by the on-screen caption  "BRITNEY COMMANDO!"  (To "go commando" is
teenspeak, documented by linguist Pamela Munro and others, meaning "to
wear no underwear.")

  The phrase was popularized some years ago by an episode of the
popular NBC series _Friends_.


On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Lisa Galvin <lisagal23 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Lisa Galvin <lisagal23 at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: another euphemism
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> =20
> I am not familiar with the term "rocking" in that sense=2C but I think the =
> first time I personally heard the phrase "going commando" was on an episode=
>  of the TV show Friends=2C so that would put it somewhere in the mid-to lat=
> e 90s? No idea where/when it actually started=2C though.
>
> =20
>
> Lisa Galvin
>

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