When such a respectable family publication as The Saturday Evening Post gives its sanction to the homely American expression “to be caught with one’s pants down”, notice of its origin may properly be taken.
Despite the fact that the appearance of the phrase in the Post is its first in print (1946), so far as is known, in all likelihood its popular usage goes back a hundred years.
Maybe longer. Maybe it was anciently “to be caught with one’s breeches down”; but the expression was never considered to be decorous enough to appear in print, so we cannot be certain of its age.
The figurative meaning is, of course, to be taken completely by surprise; to be wholly unprepared. But the literal meaning, I think, takes us back to the days when white frontiersmen were exposed to peril if their muskets were not actually at hand.
Even at the risk of death, the wants of nature must be met, and in such circumstances a lurking Indian would indeed catch one in a state of embarrassing unpreparedness.
Related Posts
-
Where does the word “pants” (pantaloons) come from and What does pants mean in Italian?
A hundred years ago the witty poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote the delightfully humorous Rhymed Lesson, in which he sought to correct various bad habits. Among them was the use of the word…
-
What Are Pantaloons, When Did Pants Originate, and Why Are Pants Referred To As a Pair?
Pants is short for pantaloons, and the item only became a single garment late in its history. Up until the seventeenth century, the legs were covered with two separate sleeves of fabric called…
-
Where Did the Phrase “Caught Red Handed” Come From and What Does the Expression Mean?
The word "redhand" goes back to the fifteenth century Scottish people and became "red-handed" within judicial circles in Britain during the eighteenth century. It means that someone has been caught in the act…
-
When Did Men Start Wearing Pants?
Until the 18th century, men's pants as we know them today didn't exist. At that time, well-dressed men wore knee breeches that reached just below their knees, with long hose to cover the…
-
What Are “Plus Fours” and How Did the Shortened Golf Pants Get Their Name?
Knickerbockers or knee breeches are pants that only go down to the knee and were quite popular in the first half of the twentieth century. Bobby Jones, among other golfers, found knickerbockers and…
-
When Did Sailors In the US Navy Start Wearing Bell-Bottom Trousers and How Did the Pants Originate?
British sailors started wearing bell-bottom trousers near the end of the eighteenth century. Before then they wore "slops," a loose-fitting mid-calf-length pant. "Bells" were only worn by "swabs," or regular seamen, and not…
