Why are Pants Plural?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Rob calling from Barnstable, Massachusetts.

Hello, Rob.

Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

I’m curious why, at least in English, we use the plural for a garment that’s worn below the waist. We never say trouser. We say we’re wearing trousers or jeans or pants or shorts or swimming trunks. Or in the old days, we’d talk about clam diggers.

Oh, yeah.

Panties also, right?

Panties, sure.

Leggings and jeggings.

Sure.

Jorts.

You know, we talk about socks because we have two of them. And someone might say, well, you have two legs, but we also have two arms. And we never talk about putting on my shirts or, you know, the blouses. So what gives?

What gives?

You know, it’s a long history where that plural has stuck with us in English for hundreds of years, back to when you did put on two pieces of clothing and attach them at the waist. And so technically you were wearing two things as one garment. And that’s what it comes from.

There was this period, oh, 1500s. I’m going to get the date wrong. But it was the 1500s or so where you kind of pulled up this sheath of one leg and the sheath up another leg. And then you fastened them at the waist with a belt of some kind or a ribbon or a sash or something. And maybe the crotch region was open or there were just tights there or something. So, yeah, there were two items. And those are pantaloons or the original Italian is something along the lines of pantalonis.

And what’s interesting for me about this is it comes from the theater. There was this comic character, this buffoon or clown who was kind of always the butt of the jokes, who was known. And all of the versions of the plays that he appeared in of wearing these kind of awkward, weird pantaloons. And so the name for the character transferred to the name of the lower half of his body, the garment he was wearing there. And then here we have it as the shortened form of pants in English. And then all the other plurals come from that. So panties and shorts and jeggings and jorts and whatever else.

So this is the old character in the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, right?

That’s right.

Pantalone?

Pantalone, yeah.

So this is hundreds of years of history, Rob. It’s a long time for this word to have kept this plural, even long after the garment really is one piece and not two or three.

You’ve reminded me of another garment worn below the waist, which sounds like those ancient ones, which would be chaps.

Oh, chaps, right. Where indeed there are two pieces of commonly leather, one on each leg, but they’re cinched at the waist, but again, two pieces of leather.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Think of a garment that’s a little bit like that. Now, there are some really fantastic resources out there where you can really get into the full history of trousers or breeches or britches, that sort of thing. But in general, these two-legged garments have been worn as far back as recorded history goes, but they come in and out of fashion. And anyway, the pantalones, it’s kind of a very restricted to the European tradition of two-legged garments. They don’t use plurals as far as I know in other languages that have historical garments that are very similar.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

So there you go, Rob. Hundreds of years of history comes from Italian, and we just kept the plural long after the plural mattered.

Great.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Good talking, Rob.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye now.

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