Your big-boy pants

[Charles C Doyle]

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-OriginatorOrg: uga.edu
X-Scanned-By: Digested by UGA Mail Gateway on 128.192.1.75
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by listserv.uga.edu id s5DE6RX0011747


Surely the reference is to successful toilet-training, the transition from diapers to big-person underpants?

--Charlie
________________________________________

Poster:       paul johnson
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been hearing "big girl panties" used that way for a minimum of 10
years.

On 6/13/2014 7:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Philip Mudd, ex-CIA analyst, on CNN re Bergdahl:
>
> "As I said in the past, you gotta strap your big-boy pants on, 'cause there
> ain't no good decisions!"
>
> SWAG: suggested by the checked pants of the Big Boy Restaurant Big Boy.
>
> And "You're a big boy now."
>
> 271,000 raw hits for "your big boy pants on."
>
> JL

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