Mysteries of vernacular: Pants - Jessica Oreck

[Music]

Mysteries of vernacular pants: an item of clothing that covers the body from the waist to the ankles or knees, each leg having a separate tubular piece. We also know them as trousers.

The history of the word pants begins in the 4th Century with the Roman Catholic Saint Pantelon. Because Pantelon was the patron saint of Venice, Venetians were commonly called pantalones.

In 16th century Italy, a type of comedy theater called Comedia del'arte was born. The masked characters of the theater were based on stock types, like the comic servant Harlequin, the clown Scaramouche, and the miserly Venetian Merchant Pantalone.

The Venetian Trader's costume was distinguished by the particular cut of his trousers, which the French began to call pantaloons. By the late 1700s, the word pantaloons had come to describe any style of trousers. As the word migrated to Britain, the lower classes shortened pantaloons to pants, though the upper class initially considered the abbreviation vulgar.

By the time Edgar Allan Poe printed the word in 1840, pant was a generally accepted term with the meaning we know today.