BS: Pants or trousers

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 10:04 AM

My mother out me in a liberty bodice at a tender age (about 2-3), and I'm a chap! All I can remember is those rubber buttons (quite comy--they didn't dig in) and a sort of stiffish t-shirt affair, worn under a conventional shirt (which only opened part-way down) ... I don't recall my little bro wearing one.

Steve

P.S. No suspenders on mine!

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: wilco
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 10:04 AM

Libertys are bib overalls in the Southeast USA. Nany men wear them everywhere, with the new overalls getting use on Sundays, funerals, weddings, etc. "Liberty" is the name of the company that manufactures overalls, and there is a little label on the overalls that say "Liberty." My children absolutely die from embarassment when I wear my libertys. Yeeehawww!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:58 AM

Rule used to be, no white shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day. I suspect that was because lighter colors were worn in the hotter weather.

Memorial Day is the last Monday in May; Labor Day the first Monday in September.

There are those in the US who still follow this rule.

By the way, white shoes and white belt used to be called a "full Cleveland." No, I don't know why.

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Declan
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:52 AM

Noreen,

I heard it from Dick Hogan's version. He has a CD out for a couple of years, but I don't have a copy and I'm not sure if this song is on it. I don't know all the words, I can only remember a few fragments including the lines I poted above. I went looking in the DT but I think I was spelling it wrong. There's at least one other verse where the poor man gets very worried in case having lost Molly, he was also going to lose his only breeches.

I have a notion I might have a recording by someone at home. If I do I'll post it next week some time.

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:51 AM

Quite so, Noreen !!!

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:51 AM

My dad, (who's even older than me, Steve) refers to his voluminous underwear as "Bombay Bloomers" which I expect is WW2 forces slang. He claims the RAF issue ones they got were so big, 3 men got in one pair and marched up and down the billet in them. (Well they didn't have television in those days).
RtS
(I still don't know about the white shoes, where is Martha Stewart when you need her -in court I guess?)

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:50 AM

! Beat you, Jeanie!

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:46 AM

Noreen - more than anyone ever wanted to know about the Liberty Bodice to be found right here

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:41 AM

The Liberty Bodice (article only, no picture... BTW, if you search for "liberty bodice" in Google images, what you see is certainly not how I remember them...)

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:24 AM

Declan, I've never heard that verse (and it's not in the DT, MOLLY BRANNIGAN)- can I have the rest of it please? :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:21 AM

When I took ROTC, back in the 60's, we were informed authoritatively by our training officer that women wore pants and men wore trousers.

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: MMario
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:17 AM

trews used to be much more generic though.

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:17 AM

Oh Jeanie yes! My three sisters and I wore a liberty bodice every winter. Very warm they were too... Was 'Liberty' a trade name for them, or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 09:05 AM

I wonder if anyone else here wore a liberty bodice ??
(A total misnomer, if ever I heard one).

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Micca
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 07:42 AM

Strictly speaking trews are Tartan trousers as worn by certain Highland regiments rather than the Kilt.
Underwear Cellular, because of its likeness to a certain brand of breakfast cereal, was known in RAF slang as "Shreddies"

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 07:33 AM

me generally referred to "brief-style" cotton underwear as either "U-Trou" or "Whitey-Tighties." The most common term for boxer style was either just boxers or "drawers," which they also share with Long Johns, as in "Long Handle Drawers." I refer to my underwear as "missing" because I quit wearing the damn things a long time ago. Gave up on socks too, unless I'm wearing boots.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Declan
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 07:13 AM

"She told me promise breeches were since ever first the world began,
But I have only one pair and they are Corduroy"

Little Mollie Brannigan

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 07:09 AM

A mackinaw is a short woolen coat, favored by those who, like loggers, spend time in the snowy forests of Maine, Upper Michigan, and the Pacific Northwest. There is one made by Filson (one of the traditional mackinaw makers) pictured here http://smtp2.thewwwstore.com/filson/85.HTM
but they have evolved over the years and now come in other designs.

Down har in Kaintuk, we'uns call em "britches." Like in, "Joe Bob, git yet britches on! The catfish are a-callin'!" Mind you, I only live here; back where I grew up we called such garments "pants" "trousers" "britches" and/or "jeans." I've also heard them called "trews" and "breeches."

Gentlemen do not discuss nether garments in public forums....

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 06:48 AM

RtS: no white shoes after Labor Day? That would sure bugger up my bowling (if I knew when Labor Day was).
Of course, it comes to me now. Labor Day tends to fall on the same week-end as the Worldcon (World sf convention), and was invented to give us a long week-end to attend it!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 06:44 AM

Talking of Y-fronts, anyone apart from Roger old enough to remember "drawers, cellular"?

When I was a kid in the fifties in England, "pants" were trousers; underpants were, well, "underpants". And "vest" is also respectable, if old-fashioned, English English for waistcoat, as well as for undervest (a word you don't hear these days).

I remember grandad telling me that ion his youth, no working men wore underpants: they had lined trousers instead. I expect the snootier types wore something a bit more dainty, though.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 06:36 AM

cracking up over "Y-Fronts." - why?

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 06:10 AM

Hey Skiff...Four-In-Hand is a way of tieing a long tie as opposed to a Windsor knot.

Like in most things (food comes readily to mind), we are indeed separated by a common language. Works in reverse here as well....I remember cracking up over "Y-Fronts."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:59 AM

Don't get me started on clothes terms in US fiction: cordovans, loafers and wing tips, four in hands, fedoras, feed caps, watch caps...I've spent ages working out these. (The first 3 are shoes styles, next is a bow tie, the others headgear).
And why is wearing white shoes after labour day such a no no? (Apart from the mud!)
RtS
(Today I am mostly wearing moccasins over an ankle support, dress pants, lumberjack shirt, singlet, jockeys and sweater).
PS don't drink out of an athletic cup

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: gnomad
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:49 AM

Doesn't a vest go over your shirt in the States? Over here we keep 'em underneath if we wear 'em at all.

I have a sneaky feeling that shorts means a different garment too.

On a slightly musical theme what is the mackinaw that the frozen logger forgot?

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: IanN
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:48 AM

I need evidence (don't know what though) to back up my argument that pants are something you wear under your trousers and not over your "undies"!

Who'd have thought Edwina Currie would have been attracted by shirts tucked into pants!

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:43 AM

And they also wear "knickers and high-cut boots" - well, Jerry Rasmussen does: Montana

This is getting to sound more and more like the Rocky Horror Show.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:42 AM

former pm john major used to tuck his shirt into his underpants!

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:30 AM

That's right and out West we never tuck our pants inside our cowboy boots unless we want to look like a "dude*!"

And, we do Suspend, rather than Brace!*bg*

* greenhorn

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:15 AM

It's n American thing.

They also use "suspenders" to hold up their pants.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Pants or trousers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:06 AM

according to Paul Burrell's latest book:'i eavesdropped on the royle famly', these garments were always called 'tryzers'!

Subject: BS: Pants or trousers
From: IanN
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:01 AM

Is referring to your trousers as your "pants" an American thing?

There is a debate raging in my office. Someone said he had special pants for important meetings which I found hilarious but he really meant trousers which isn't so funny!