[PLUG-TALK] A pair of pants (was: software program)

[Ronald Chmara]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:10 AM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:14:33 -0800 (PST)
> Gregory Salter <winterbeastie at yahoo.com> dijo:
>
>>This sounds like the age-old question of why do we call it a pair of
>>pants when there's only one garment there?
>
> By the same logic that makes English speakers say "a pair of scissors."
> It's actually not logic. It is about patterns. Human languages are
> devoid of logic (with a salute of the finger variety to Chomsky); rather
> they are made of wholes and patterns (syntagms and paradigms).
>
> In Spanish the usual term for "a pair of scissors" is "una tijera." But
> I hear many speakers (especially Mexicans) say "las tijeras." And pants
> are "pantalones" to all Spanish speakers, plural as in English.
>
> Nouns are not marked for number in many languages. Indo-European nouns
> were marked for singular, dual, and plural. The dual marker leveled into
> the plural marker early in the southern reflexes of Indo-European, but
> survived in the Germanic family until as late as Anglo-Saxon and
> Gothic, and in the Celtic family survives to the present day. Even in
> present day Indo-European languages there are always words for "both"
> and "pair," relics of the dual syntax. Consider also the Greek
> prefixes "mono-," "di-," and "poly," or their Latin equivalents "uni-,"
> 'bi-," and "multi," additional evidence of previous states of the
> languages.
>
> JJJ, linguist semipotentiary, shutting up lest this become a lecture.

A simpler explanation: a single pant would only cover one leg.

I'm actually semi-serious.... culturally, pants come from horse
riding. They're like chaps for your thighs, a fairly pointless kind of
garment in most situations, but they somehow became the dominant dress
for much of western culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trousers#History

-Kiltedbop