Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Today I just got around to listening to the podcast (from last November) entitled "Fun with Mnemonics." A caller asked about the origin of the term "trunks" for male swimming shorts. Grant stated quite flatly that this is a distinctively American expression and not used in Britain. That is just not true. I was born and grew up in Britain in the 1950s and 60s, in a family with no particular American connections, and we (and, so far as I know, everyone we knew) always referred to these items as "trunks" (or "swimming trunks"). That was the word for them, and it would have seemed odd and awkward to call them anything else (quite as odd as it would have been for us to call trousers "pants," as Americans do: pants, for the British, are underwear, although I dare say most Brits know that this is not the case in America). My father was a high school English teacher and in my family (not to mention in school) use of distinctively American expressions picked up from TV or movies, tended to be met with at least mild disapproval. But "trunks" was certainly not in this category. The expression may have originally been imported from America, I don't know, but if so it was certainly thoroughly naturalized in Britain by the 1950s, and, unlike certain other expressions we did sometimes use, it carried no taint of being an "Americanism."

The link below (while it lasts) will show you a pair of trunks on sale right now at a very British store. (The full URL does not fit on the page, but click it and it will take you there.)

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/product/B001232WBE/sr=1-13/qid=1201401334/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&node=&m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&keywords=&mnSBrand=core&size=63&rh=n%3A43569030&page=