being pants (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Jun 08, 2012 at 10:21:17AM -0500, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> Never heard this before:
>
> " First off, apologies for being pants at sending out my newsletter
> recently. Thanks for everyone who's emailed me asking if I'm still doing
> it."
>
> I assume, from context, that "being pants" means "not doing a very good
> job" or "being delinquent" or something similar.

It's almost exclusively British slang, euphemistic for _crap_ or the
like. OED has this from 1994, at _pants_ n. sense 4.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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