Clothing

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Clothing. Trousers or Dress, Blouse or Shirt, just where do these names come from? Never mind who created the style, who created the original and thus the name? Find out the answers to these and other questions, including why we have a pair of trousers when there is clearly only one garment, and take a tour from ancient attire to what the modern model is wearing. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required.

Pocket – etymologically you can actually hear this is a pock-ette, ie a small pock. Exactly what it means and, as a simplistic term, is very old. Can’t be traced earlier than Proto-Germanic (only about 4,000 years ago) puk means ‘bag’. Note the word ‘poke’ had the same meaning in Old English, hence a ‘pig in a poke’ means you should expect to find a porker in a bag but unlikely and therefore you won’t find what you expect in the bag. Using ‘poke’ to mean ‘nudge, jab, etc’., only dates from around 1750. Also, if I haven’t killed off all interest in pokes and pockets think about the rhyme beginning Lucy Locket lost her pocket – how do you lose a pocket, it’s stitched into the garment? Well not always, for most of history it was a separate item. Which is why women still carry bags and men have pockets in their clothes.

Girdle – since the 8th century, from a Germanic word meaning ‘to gird’ and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ghr-dh ‘to grasp’.

Breeches – seen since around 1200, this is an odd double plural. Here Old English brec meant ‘breeches’ before it was pluralised, for brec was already the plural form of broc meaning ‘garment for the legs and trunk’. Now originally the garment was one sided, thus when pluralised it referred to both legs which, with the upper part, crossed over and were tied together to form a single item but clearly plural. That the item was intended to be worn in two halves is likely the reason for it coming from Proto-Indo-European bhreg or ‘break’.

Apron – one of a number of words, adder and umpire are others, which began as ‘a napron’, and continued to be used until the 16th century, but through a process known as ‘faulty separation’ became ‘an apron’. Coming to English from Old French naperon ‘small table cloth’ and ultimately from the Latin mappa ‘napkin’ and further back still to ‘matting’.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.