46 thoughts on “Pants”

    4. delacaravanio

      Bingo. If an Irish friend texted me and told me they’d no pants I’d laugh thinking what sort of an eejit were they that they managed to lose them. If they were British, on the other hand, I’d be thinking things were after getting awfully kinky between us.

    5. Grouse

      But are pants trousers here? I never had any English channels but I’m fairly sure I never heard “pants” used as “trousers” before the late ’90s.

        1. Sidewinder

          Yup, it’s a Dub thing, not a west brit thing. The rest of the country (or at least outside leinster) thinks pants are trousers.

          1. The Old Boy

            I was utterly unaware of this and reserve the right to narrow my eyes in a manner suggesting that I remain unconvinced.

    7. cluster

      As a Dub, I’d agree that pants are merely trousers.

      As a Dub, your comment displays the narrow-minded, useless chip in the shoulder exhibited by so many people in Ireland ‘outside the Pale’.

      Maybe if you country denizens spent a bit less time policing behaviour with 19th Century cliches, you might create a bit more original culture and there’d be less need to rely on the likes of bbc&ITV

  2. ahyeah

    From a discussion of Catholic symbolism and calls for a newly imagined Republic to pants and an 8 year-old’s giggles.

  5. Frenchfarmer

    Amurcans are to blame on this one for shortening pantalons to pants.
    So now they have to say underwear which is longer.

  7. Sinabhfuil

    Pants are certainly female underwear, unless you call them knickers or ‘lingerie’ (mispronounced lonjerey).

    1. sickofallthisbs

      So should I pronounce it lingery? As in a fart that lingers? A lingery fart? Is that what that means? A fart with knickers on?

    2. Feegan

      Or LANjuray as in ‘I hear it’s Ireland’s largest LANjuray department’

      Seriously though, always thought pants were underwear or knickers and pants was an American term for trousers. Pretty sure I’ve heard people from all over the country say ‘pants’ but have never thought about it too deeply… Until now

      Thanks BS

  9. sparkilicious

    Suburban Dub here.

    Pants = briefs/y-fronts/knickers

    Have none of you heard the phrase “pair of pants”? We don’t use it to refer to trousers now do we?

  11. Korma

    Im a dub, grew up in the 80’s. Pants are trousers. In fact I live in the uk and still say pants for trousers. People can laugh all they want, I’m proud of my irishisms.

    I’ve always called my underwear, ‘underwear’…. I’m female so, they’re really too small to be pant like in shape? Maybe Im just nuts though.

  12. Grouse

    Okay, I’m still really confused. Those of you sayings “pants” = “trousers”, I understand your position that pants does not mean underpants, but would you also commonly use pants to mean trousers? Are you saying that traditionally, say 30 or 50 years ago, non-Dubs would have said pants regularly, meaning trousers? Or would they have simply not used the word at all (until it came over from America)?

      1. Grouse

        Fascinating. My family is from just within and Pale and just beyond the Pale, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard pants used to mean trousers (they would say “trousers”). I’ll have to canvas them this Christmas.

        1. Alfred E. Neumann

          “Terrible bad connection on that call from Grouse. All I got is that he wants canvas trousers for Christmas.”
          “Well, If that’s what he wants. Good job I didn’t put a deposit on that juicer.”

          1. Grouse

            Haha. But “juicer” is a recent Americanism, of course. No true Irishman would call it anything other than a turnip-thrasher.

    2. Alfred E. Neumann

      Outside Dublin “pants” is, or was, regularly used to mean trousers. I suspect it was used by Dubliners too, perhaps until it was pushed out by exposure to the English usage. When Bloom in Ulysses says “father’s pants will soon fit Willy”, I don’t think he’s talking about hand-me-down underwear. (Thought with Joyce, of course, it is possible.)

      Does anyone have access to the OED?

    4. Korma

      My Dad, nearly 70, from Dublin, calls trousers ‘Pants’, as does my mum who is from Mayo. I’m pretty sure that their parents did too. I imagine some households always say/said trousers and some say pants, but it definitely isn’t something that we picked up from the US. Its probably more like (like a lot of the things we say similar to the US and different from UK) we’ve influenced haw they say things in the US, as so many American have Irish ancestry.

      1. Neilo

        Trousers are ‘trews’, ‘slacks’, ‘kex’, ‘pants’ or ‘strides’. What lies beneath can be ‘pants’ or ‘kex’, ‘grundies’ or ‘undercrackers’ or ‘trollies’.

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