You can’t wear one leg each from two different pairs of jeans and go about your daily business, like you could for two pairs of shoes or socks, each of which is independent from the other, albeit left and right specific in various cases.
The same is true for a pair of reading glasses.
Whilst it’s obvious that both glasses and jeans (and pants in general) are referred to as being a pair, due to the two legs and eyes aspect, we don’t refer to a jumper as a pair of jumpers, unless there’s physically four sleeves attached to two bodies.
Why is that and where else does this occur?
Trousers are plural because originally they were only a pair of legs (without anything between!) and were tied to a belt.
Pants used to be two parts that were joined by lacing them together like shoes at the crotch. So weaving lashed together from the belly button to the groin to the ass and back up to the lower back.
I believe puffy white undershorts would be worn underneath, and sometimes a codpiece.
Another possibility is that “pants” comes from “pantaloons.” Like some other nouns (“scissors” comes to mind), they appear to be plural, and so people tend to attach other designations of plurality to them.
https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-we-say-a-pair-of-pants
That’s a whole image right there … got any evidence of this?
That’s interesting. The Encyclopaedia Britannica appears to contradict this, stating:
However, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence in reference sources to support this theory.
Source: see the reply by @Nougat@fedia.io to you.
It is also true that pants were originally two separate legs, lashed as shown. But that might not be the reason we refer to them as a “pair of pants.”
A pair of jeans for a pair of legs.
women wear a pair of panties but only one bra.
🤯
For some items like glasses it’s very clear why they are pairs; if you can have a reading glass (which is an antiquated way to refer to a handheld magnifying lens, for example) then you can certainly have a pair of reading glasses because it’s the two pieces of glass which are plural.
For trousers there are no certain answers, but I’d suggest it’s very much with with how we conceptualise their function. For 90% of their height trousers are split and cover the legs, of which we have two, only joining right at the top.
For shirts you might think it’s the same (two arms right?) but it’s a completely different story because the primary function of a shirt isn’t to cover the arms but to cover the torso. So it’s singular. And gloves of course are distinct, so it’s back to pairs.
A pair of pliers is just one tool.
And an au pair is just one person, usually a woman, and they aren’t made of a piece of gold, much less two.
Checkmate, linguists!
What about a brassiere?
Same logic, the bra itself as a whole is a chest covering, so like a shirt it’s not a “pair”
Not that there always has to be logic in these things, etymology sometimes defies that.
A bra does have a “pair of cups”, though!
You can’t wear one leg each from two different pairs of jeans and go about your daily business.
Well not with that attitude you can’t! I can think of several ways to accomplish this
😂
I guess each leg qualifies as its own jean?
Good jeans are two pieces of jean material, stitched together with an orange threading into a pant shape. Pair of jeans is prob from that.
So what do you call a pair of jeans for a one legged person? You ableist.
A jean legging.
You show me a pair of jeans with one leg and I’ll think of a name.
So far I’m thinking “a leg of jeans” … needs some work 😇
A pair of scissors. Is this an English grammar rule when 2 parts are connected to function as one it’s still a pair.?
It’s called a plurale tantum or “plural-only noun”.
I’d say it’s less of a grammar rule and more about how things made up of two similar parts can be conceptualised
Is this an English grammar rule
English grammar and spelling rules were made up on the fly by Dutch workers with a tenable grasp on the language themselves.
They just operated the first English printing presses and the owner valued quantity over quality. So they just did fucking whatever.
Source?
It was William Caxton about 600 years ago who owned it.
Everything I found just now talks about how great a historical figure he was, and implies he somehow was personally doing the work.
But if you dig deeper you should be able to find reference to the Dutch workers he brought with the press who knew how to use it and actually set the type on the presses. They were the ones actually making those books that standardized English grammar and spelling.
I don’t have the time at the moment, but if you’re interested then that’s enough to start researching
My two cents, from a french perspectice : we say “a pair of scissors” and “a pair of glasses” but never “a pair of jeans”. For the glasses, it kinda make sense since you can wear only one glass at a time though it’s highly unpractical. For the scissors it make sense if you consider one scissor to be one blade with a handle. I perfectly understand your rant on the jeans point.
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Apologies if this was perceived as a rant … I’m genuinely interested in discovering why we refer to a pair of jeans.
As for glasses. In the time of monocles that might have made sense, but I’ve never seen anyone wear two of them.
Im not 100% sure what rant means, I didnt want to imply negativity, sorry for that. This really felt like a legitimate remark to me!
Yup, for the glasses, it’s definitely an explanation of why we used to call them that way, the justification does not have much sense nowadays.
Rant:
to speak, write or shout in a loud, uncontrolled, or angry way
Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rant
They’re made up of two similar parts which form a pair, unlike a jumper
You have jumpers with one sleeve?
Edit: A bra is symmetrical and has two cups, but it’s not called a pair of brassieres.
A jumper is a bad example, because it’s not just made up of sleeves.
A bra is a much better example. But I was never making an argument that all things made up of two parts are referred to as a pair, just my thoughts on the rationale behind cases where we do.
Understood.
Could that be because it’s a French word and they pluralise differently?
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Calling them “a pant” just sounds awkward tho.
