being pants (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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The email from which I took the quote came from the UK.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
Behalf Of
> Jesse Sheidlower
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2012 10:24 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: being pants (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
----------------------
> -
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: being pants (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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------
> -
>
> 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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