A Single Pair of Jeans

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

This is Terry from Jamestown, New York.

Hiya, Terry. What’s going on in Jamestown?

My question is this, and actually I have five children.

It came from one of my five children when they were younger.

You have a pair of gloves, and there’s two of them.

You have a pair of shoes, and there’s two of them.

You have a pair of socks, and there’s two of them.

But you have a pair of jeans, and there’s only one pair.

-huh.

Was this one of these questions that they asked right before you were putting them to bed just to keep you up?

Make you stay a little longer?

Most likely.

But I always thought that was a good question, and children are very inquisitive

And probably think deeper into things than we do.

And ask some of the hardest questions.

Yes, and they don’t let you just go off with no answer.

You really have to have an answer for them.

That’s right.

So you had to track us down.

I had to track you down.

Okay, genes.

Well, let’s see what we can do on this.

Let’s start all the way back in Italy and go with pantaloon.

You’re familiar with pantaloon, right?

Yes, sir.

The pantaloon actually was originally a character from the Italian commedia dell’arte.

It’s a foolish old man who wears pantaloons,

And these are these big, baggy, kind of billowy pants, right?

And so we have a plural with pantaloons.

I don’t know why that plural was there.

I’m not sure, but I believe it’s a natural thing to do when you’re referring to the type of clothing worn by a person.

So this man was known, this character was known for wearing the pantaloon, and they became known as pantaloons in English.

So there’s some transfer there from Italian into English.

We shortened it in English further to pants.

We kept the S and we kept the plural, right?

When you look at a pair of pants, there are two legs.

And so it’s not completely out of the question that it could be a plural item, right?

Indeed.

Yeah, and same for underpants, right?

That’s right.

Yep, exactly.

Yeah, you’re right.

And panties, for that matter.

And these all descend from that original word pantaloon.

Now hold that thought for a second, and let’s talk about the history of the word jean.

The word jean ultimately comes from Genoa in Italy, which is a town where this particular fabric was created, right?

And the word became corrupted over time into jean, G-E-A-N.

And jean described the fabric, this kind of cotton, fustian they call it, made of flax or wool.

And in our recent history, most often colored indigo or blue.

And when this particular fabric was used to make pants in the American West,

It seemed natural, I believe, and this is my theory,

And I think there are a few sources that will back me up on this,

To also continue the plural and to call them jeans.

That is, they were made from the fabric jean.

They were a kind of pants.

Therefore, they became jeans or blue jeans.

Same as Levi’s, I guess.

Yeah, you’re right.

I never thought about that before.

So how does that sound?

I hadn’t either.

Does that sound plausible?

That sounds very plausible.

It sure does.

Well, Terry, thank you so much for your call.

We’re glad that you’re listening there in the cold north.

We hope to keep you warm at least for an hour a week.

All right.

I appreciate that.

And you guys take care of yourselves.

Okay.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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