being pants (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 6/8/2012 11:28 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
>The email from which I took the quote came from the UK.

But it doesn't quite fit the OED's definition?  I don't see how one
could replace "(being) pants" with "rubbish', "nonsense", or "crap"
in the quotation.  The writer is apologizing for not having done
something, not for having, say, written rubbish.

Joel


> > -----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)
> >
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>------
> > -
> >
> > 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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>Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>Caveats: NONE
>
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