Pants
Created | Updated Mar 29, 2002
How to confuse two countries already divided by the same language? Call men's undergarments 'pants' in one country, and call a man's trousers 'pants' in the other. Do you wear your pants on the outside? Well, in the UK, its patently obvious that Superman does indeed wear his pants on the outside, when in hugely embarrassing superhero outfit mode; but to your avid American comic-book reader, its patently obvious that Superman only wears pants on the outside when in Clark Kent mode. And if that isn't confusing enough, the word is a homonym: a dog pants. And I can wear pants on the outside; I can wear pants in the inside (in a way, we all do I suppose...), and the late-nineties vernacular adjective to describe something in a negative sense, to have failed, to be inadequate or not fit for purpose is....wait for it..."pants". Usage: "Yes, I wrote this program to manage my finances and cut down my administration time each month by 75%, however it failed to perform any of its designed tasks, and destroyed my hard-drive in the process: it's pants!". See? This confusing use of the word 'pants' is in itself, inherently pants. My momma used to say "life is like a pair of pants: you never know whether to wear 'em on the inside or the outside, although in a way we all do have pants on on the inside." I never understood the bit about pants on the inside (but you know...), and it was obvious that the woman was disturbed and I had watched a dumb-ass film about some dumb-ass dumb-ass too many times. At the end of the day, Alan Hansford would tell you its about goals in the back of the net, but you and I know that that's just pants.
