Panties

[Ronald Butters]

"Panties" is a useful word. It distinguishes one kind of garment from another.

Men and boys wear shorts and boxers. Women wear panties. All wear underwear (or go without).

"Tom is a panties fetishist" and "Dick is a boxers fetishist" suggest rather different things about the sexual orientations of Tom and Dick.

"Chris always wears name-brand panties" suggests that Chris is female, or a male behaving atypically.

By the way, nobody I know wears "smalls."

On Nov 20, 2011, at 10:44 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 11/20/2011 05:17 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 12:47 AM, Garson O'Toole
>> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > AARP's article "Things We're Too Old to Say"
>> http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-03-2011/slang-we-should-drop.html
>> includes "panties".
>>
>> How asinine!!
>>
>> _Panties_ is, in fact, no longer part of my active vocabulary, but
>> only because, sadly, I have no use for this word, not finding women's
>> undies as riveting a topic of conversation as I did in my youth, when
>> even a glimpse of a feminine kneecap was a breath-taking experience.
>> And, IME, even back in the day, the number of occasions when panties
>> were a topic of conversation bordered on the non-existent
>
> Wilson, are you before or after the age of panty raids?  :-)  They
> were not uncommon in my era.
>
> Joel
>
>> and, when
>> panties did happen to be under discussion, the traditional BE unisex
>> term, _drawers_ [draUz], was used.
>>
>> BTW, is "panties" even considered to be slang? IMO, it's the standard term.
>>
>> Besides, the youth of today find what they call "grannie-panties" to
>> be an object of derision. Nobody wears them, anymore. So, why would
>> anyone discuss them, in the first place?
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org