Websnark

Comment from: HumanSockPuppet posted at May 29, 2006 1:05 PM

People always tell me that I look like Penn Jillette.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at May 29, 2006 2:11 PM

It's probably because of the chains on your british pants.

Comment from: miyaa posted at May 29, 2006 2:24 PM

British Pants? How are British Pants different from say American Pants? Or French Pants?

And why would you put chains on your British Pants? (Come to think of it, it would explain the Seuss story, The Yellow Pants with No One Inside Them.)

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at May 29, 2006 2:43 PM

British "pants" tend to be spelled "panties" over in America.

American "pants" tend to be spelled "trousers" over in Britain.

For the record, I am totally addicted to Penn Radio. To the point where I download the podcasts.

In fact, I am downloading podcasts right now.

To sync to my iPod.

To listen to on the plane ride home tomorrow.

I mean, dude.

Comment from: HumanSockPuppet posted at May 29, 2006 4:52 PM

American pants differ from British pants as much as aluminum differs from *aluminium.*

Comment from: Dave Van Domelen posted at May 29, 2006 5:14 PM

So, aluminum is outerwear, and aluminium is underwear? Sounds painful for the Brits.

Comment from: Kludge posted at May 29, 2006 5:58 PM

British "pants" tend to be spelled "panties" over in America.

Good lord..

Underpants (if you're a man)
Knickers (if you're a lady)

Not panties.

Comment from: Ununnilium posted at May 29, 2006 11:08 PM

...no, "panties" (or perhaps "lingerie") if you're a lady. No American would say "knickers" unless they were trying to sound British.

Comment from: The Mystif posted at May 29, 2006 11:16 PM

He has a radio show! I never knew! I love Pen.

Comment from: miyaa posted at May 30, 2006 12:17 AM

See, I thought knickers was an 18th Century thing, like the New York Knickerbockers (aka the Knicks).

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at May 30, 2006 12:40 AM

They don't like to be called the New York Lacy Undergarments, it's worth noting.

Comment from: miyaa posted at May 30, 2006 2:21 AM

Considering how they'd played this year? They'd preferred Lacy Undergarments to whatever else you'd call them.

(Isaiah Thomas is a bad, bad, GM...)

By the way, is aluminium prounounced as it's spelled? Because I could never say that word without afterword putting an ice pack on my tongue. That word staggers all over the place like a really drunk person still drinking her latest drink. Well, that and indubitably.

What the University of Chicago English geeks really could start work on is a proper pronounication guide.

Comment from: Branitar posted at May 30, 2006 5:07 AM

Pants, panties, underpants, knickers, trousers... Stop it! You confuse us Germans! ;)

Comment from: Merus posted at May 30, 2006 8:48 AM

Aluminium honestly isn't that hard. Aloo-mini-um. Damn sight more fun that aloomium.

Is anyone else trying to work out the bad? I think it's probably Nickleback, but then that's the band I always think of whenever someone talks about ditching the singer.

Comment from: HumanSockPuppet posted at May 30, 2006 11:11 AM

The solution is simple. Nickleback must step away from music and search for other avenues of profit, such as tying their name to a product.

(K)nickleback knickers!

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at May 30, 2006 11:47 AM

Damn, Miyaa beat me to the joke.

The funny thing is, I never hear the word "underpants" used except in humorous situations (because let's face it, "underpants" is inherently funny). For a general term for a garment you wear next to your skin in private areas, I hear either the general term "underwear" (which isn't quite as amusing as "underpants" but still has its moments) or a more specific term to describe the exact shape of said garment (boxers, briefs, thong, "tighty whities", panties, g-string, butt floss, etc.).

I always imagined that "pants" had the same meaning in both America and Britain at one point, but we altered it somewhere along the line. Anyone know how that occurred at all?

Comment from: miyaa posted at May 30, 2006 11:53 AM

Butt floss? That's high comedy. (Seriously, butt floss? What the hell is butt floss? Bikinis without the biki?)

Speedos are more like the horror stories that causes people to go blind.

And hey, you try living with a speech impediment. I'm pretty sure my tongue is just too big for my mouth.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at May 30, 2006 2:30 PM

Okay, to answer my own question first, apparently, "pants" descends from pantaloon, which was an outer garment. So it's the British who decided to get all strange with their pants first.

Generally, I've heard "butt floss" as a crude synonym for a thong or g-string, but someone out there might have a more narrow (pardon the pun) definition.

Finally, I do have a speech impediment. It's a mild stutter that I do know how to work around. This proves really interesting whenever I have a PR-related function I need to do.

Comment from: larksilver posted at May 30, 2006 2:52 PM

I realize it's terribly wrong of me, but I *like* Chad Kroeger's voice. It's all.. well, it reminds me that even though I'm single now, I'm not broken, and that's all I'm going to say about that. Mmm.

As for "underpants," I'm forced to think of the rather silly children's book "The Adventures of Captain Underpants" and its sequels - ever so popular with the 6 to 10-year-old boys.

Pert, petite little bottoms wear thongs - you can still see the fabric, etc.. Largish bottoms, however, wear butt floss; hopefully I don't have to spell out why the same item changes description. There are just some things that aren't designed for those of us with more than a certain percentage of body fat (myself included).

This has been another edition of Lark Talks Too Much. Thank you, you may now continue with your regularly scheduled coherence.

Comment from: Kymation posted at May 30, 2006 3:34 PM

Coherence? None of that here....

If I'm reading my OED correctly, the US version of pants does indeed descend from pantaloons, but the British version comes from pantalettes. Pantalettes originally referred to an item of female outerwear. For some reason women then began wearing them under skirts, so the word became associated with underwear. Thus the Brits are no stranger than they ever were; they just arrived at the term by shortening a different word.

I blame the French.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at May 30, 2006 6:43 PM

Lark, I don't know about you, but I've seen some people that would be described as "teh hottness" that only had a string running down - and consequently into - their buttocks for certain types of underwear. While a normal thong can be converted into butt floss on those who shouldn't be wearing one, there is something along those lines that would be called butt floss for even the most well-proportioned human being on the planet.

As for this alternate origin of pants, my Webster's Unabridged only talks about pantaloons, and it does make a point to mention that the British consider it a term for what Americans would call underwear. Meanwhile, my copy of Le Petit Robert does not acknowledge, even in archaic French, such a word as pantalettes. It does mention culottes, braies, grimpant, and sarouel. But no pantalettes.

Comment from: Wednesday White posted at May 30, 2006 6:50 PM

The band was Godsmack, I think.

Comment from: Kymation posted at May 30, 2006 8:18 PM

The OED states that "pantalettes" is the diminutive of "pantaloon," so pantaloon could be considered the root of both words by different routes. Pantalettes (the word) is now considered obsolete, so I'm not at all surprised it isn't in modern dictionaries.

I was blaming the French for the English language in general, not just this word. However, further perusal of the OED indicates that the US usage of pantaloon was probably taken from the French "pantalon" around 1800. This would make it correct to blame the French for the US usage, and the US for the British term. Maybe. If you want to.

I have no opinion whatsoever of Godsmack, since I've never heard them. Fortunately, it would appear.

Comment from: HumanSockPuppet posted at May 30, 2006 10:44 PM

Americans just love blaming the French, it seems.

Comment from: kamagurka posted at May 31, 2006 6:12 AM

Fuck, Penn Jillette radio is awesome. And there's no way I'd be able to get it if they weren't podcasting it.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at May 31, 2006 9:23 AM

I'm aware that's what the OED says, but keep in mind that Le Robert is the French dictionary held in the highest esteem. And they're perfectly willing to list really old variants of words (least I can tell, "le grimpant" hasn't been used in the common language in at least 500 years). So the fact of the matter is that I really doubt the word "pantalettes" is a French word if I can't dig it up in my copy of Le Petit Robert.

Comment from: miyaa posted at May 31, 2006 12:53 PM

Le Petit Robert is a French dictionary? A French dictionary that means, "The little Bob?"

Clearly, I need another level in etmology geek...

Comment from: quiller posted at May 31, 2006 5:22 PM

Ah, but don't forget that another word for little is dimunitive which is also what you call the word you get when you take a male name and alter it for children or females.

So Le Petit Robert could be shortened to Robby or Bobby. So if anyone asks you what the authority on the French language is, you can just tell them that it is the little kid from Family Circus.

Comment from: Pooga posted at May 31, 2006 6:02 PM

...except for the fact that unless "P.J." is an odd nickname and not an abbreviation of his given names, none of the Family Circus children is named Robert or any derivative thereof.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at May 31, 2006 11:47 PM

The fact that a 1000-page dictionary could be referred to as the "Little Bob" astounds most people when they first see it. That's mostly because only a few dozen places in the United States have copies of Le Grand Robert, which can accurately be described as a goat-killer (over 9400 pages, and to get one would run you over $1200). As is, the most recent printing of Le Petit Robert (my own is actually a CD-ROM version, from 1999) is over 2800 pages long.

But it's worth noting that anyone worth their salt that studies the French language will get their hands on, at the very least, Le Robert Micro.

Comment from: HumanSockPuppet posted at June 1, 2006 12:51 AM

I don't study French, I just picked it up from mah folks.

I ain't all fancy like you city lurned types.

Comment from: KennyCelican posted at June 1, 2006 2:59 PM

Yes, Americans love blaming the French. Especially when disputing something with someone or something perceived as British, I've noted.

I personally don't study French, mostly because my pseudo-French relatives were SO annoying that I refused to accomodate them even that much. 'Pseudo-French' meaning Americans with little or no French anscestry who have moved to France and are, I can't think any other way to say it, Evangelical Francophiles.

My favorite Penn story - college friend of mine asked him for an autograph. Penn says, I assume trying to figure out my friend's name, "what should I write". Friend says, in typical 'too cool to be fanboyish, but too fanboyish to think' manner, "Oh, I don't care". So my friend has a peice of paper in his scrapbook that says "F*** You, Penn Jillete"

And I want chains on my British Pants. That would be so cool.

Comment from: siwangmu posted at June 2, 2006 4:46 PM

Wait, did some guy write a French dictionary and then invent Rules of Order? I'm impressed! And confused. (seriously, the Robert?)

Comment from: Johnny Assay posted at June 8, 2006 11:35 AM

Paul Robert wrote the dictionary; Henry Robert wrote the rules. They were barely even contemporaneous.

Oh, and if you really want a copy of the Grand Robert, it looks like you can get it for around 400 € at Amazon.fr. Plus shipping.

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