Pants and Other Clothing That Could Go To Waste

 Episode 87 of I Hate Talking dives into the surprisingly rich world of pants—sparked by the hosts’ recent closet decluttering and reflections on how many clothes a typical American household accumulates. They start with definitions and regional differences: in North America, “pants” means trousers, while in British English “pants” often means underwear and can even be slang for “nonsense” or “rubbish.” They trace the word back through “pantaloons,” to the comic Italian character Pantalone, whose too-tight breeches helped give the garment its name.

From there, the conversation branches into culture, gender, and clothing norms: who “wears the pants” in a relationship, why women historically wore dresses instead of pants, and how pockets (or the lack of them) feed modern “patriarchy and purses” theories. They touch on kilts, boys’ short pants, capris, and their family’s “Yes Day” tradition that once led to Dad in a dress—plus why he’s not planning a full-time wardrobe change. The episode closes with a look at sustainable fashion: how much clothing is overproduced, what to do with unworn items, and practical ideas like the backward-hanger trick, reselling, and donating instead of trashing.

Keywords: pants, pantaloons, Pantalone, trousers vs pants, British vs American English, pants etymology, clothing history, gender norms, who wears the pants, pockets and patriarchy, dresses vs pants, kilts, capris, short pants, sustainable fashion, clothing overproduction, decluttering, backward hanger trick, clothing donation, Yes Day, family traditions, I Hate Talking podcast.

Transcript

I Hate Talking: 0:29

Welcome to episode 87 of I Hate Talking. Hi everyone. So, we are still continuing on our normal routine of weekly podcast drops and for the foreseeable future that will continue, I suppose, but it does seem that we do have a lot going on with the holidays and related activities. Yeah, I think this is a busy time for everyone in the world and We are no exception to that. That's true. So, we still seem to find some time and during our spare time over the past few weeks, we have been doing some decluttering and that includes purging some clothing that we either no longer wear or that the kids have outgrownn and it's just amazing how much clothing the typical American. Will amass over the course of their lifetime because I don't think we're atypical per se, but we do have a lot of clothes it seems. Right. And I mean, I have a lot of clothes also, but Is it fair, or am I allowed to say on here that when you look at our closet, 2/3 of it. Used to be yours, and then I had the other. Yeah, maybe, maybe. 3/5. People once in a while would talk about like, oh, you know, you have such a big closet, which we do. And especially at our old home, we did. That was a massive, like that could have been a bedroom. It was insane and people would comment on that and. Then I'm like, well, look, this part's mine. The rest of it is Adam's. You didn't fill it up, obviously. Well, we also have a lot of scout supplies as well as podcasting equipment in our closet. Yeah, this is a very multi-purpose room for sure. Indeed, so perhaps we'll talk more about that as the episode goes on, but that does bring us to our word or phrase of the episode, and that word is the word pants. OK. And obviously that has been on our mind with the recent decluttering phase that we've spent some time on, specifically recently purging of clothing. But I suppose pants is a relatively well-known term that it is going to consist of the clothing worn on the lower half of the human body to cover your legs in separate pieces of fabric, typically called trousers that that is the definition of the word, but I guess we can check our favorite Oxford language dictionary. Because we skipped that last time and actually did see some additional clarification from our definition last time. So let's check the official definition of the word pants. OK, cool. So it's actually interesting to note that perhaps the Oxford Language Dictionary is not the best source for this particular definition because it actually has separate definitions for North American English versus the British. That, that's what I was about to say. If it's Oxford, that would be Britain, right? And they use the word trousers. Is that true? They would typically call those trousers and pants would actually refer to underpants or underwear, which is actually the etymology of the phrase ants in your pants, that the ants are not in the North American trousers, pants, but actually ants in your underwear if you use that phrase. OK. So it defines the North American English term for pants as trousers or an outer garment covering each leg from waist to ankle. So then why did. North America, start calling it pants, if that means underwear. So it was an original clipping of the word pantaloons. So the first time that I guess that clipped and pantaloons became pants was in the 1830s and then therefore became the American term as the outer garment. Pantaloons is underwear, right, or no? So that is where I was going next and defining the word pantaloons and talking about the etymology of that particular word because that is The definition of the word pants, essentially trousers in North American English and underpants in British English. And it also can be used as slang in the United Kingdom for nonsense, rubbish or something bad. So you could say that's pants, and that would mean like that's nonsense or rubbish or something bad. OK. So maybe that'd be the next gen, whatever we're on word in America. Maybe we can make that popular. The new the new 67. Well, 67 is pants. Because that's rubbish. Nonsense. Yes, there you go. So when were pants invented, right? Because there's like a whole, I've, is it true? Educate us. I've heard that like women didn't wear pants for. Like in modern day, didn't wear pants until relatively recently. They had to wear dresses or skirts. And I've heard like all these conspiracies about the patriarchy and they didn't want us to carry pocket have pockets and all that. So is that all true? Perhaps that's not necessarily what I was thinking for this episode, but maybe we'll get there. So let's first look at the definition of pantaloon and where that came from. So we've already covered that the word in the American English, pants comes from pantaloon and pantaloon came from French and before that Italian. And that is defined in English as men's close fitting breeches fastened below the calf or at the foot. It also can refer to women's long underpants that they would wear. Basically as pants, so one leg in each of the particular. Pieces of fabric that were then worn under the skirt or dress that you referred to, and this original term actually came from a character's name in an Italian comedy. And that particular character was named Pantalone, and that part was played by a foolish old man that wore very tight fitting breeches. Or breeches in American English, I suppose. And That particular character was named, like I said, Pantalone, so Pantalone. Became in Italy associated with that particular style of garment. OK, it's like tight, yeah, I can picture it like. Longer than underwear that we would call underwear. But that really tight. Pants. That you wouldn't see like, but he wasn't probably supposed to show, walk around like that, right? That wasn't culturally right. That's part of the comedy of that particular character is that he was wearing these ill-fitting garments, which is interesting to note that then somewhere along the way, and based on my research, I couldn't find any particular. Instances of anybody's idea on why this happened, but pants typically now are more loose fitting and cover your entire body from waist to ankle, whereas the original pant alone character wore tight fitting trousers or breeches or breeches that were from the waist down to only the calf and were very tight fitting. OK. But there's like a whole cultural thing, like in Britain, right? I'm gonna butcher this because I don't remember the specifics. But like boys do not wear pants until they're a certain age. Even when it's cold out, they still wear, I think they call them trousers or whatnot, like they go to the calves. Yeah, I guess in America, they would be referred to as like waiters or clam diggers where the The length of fabric on the leg of the quote unquote pants is shortened so they don't get them wet in water related activities like that. -- We call them wa -- waders, yes, or clam diggers. I've heard clam diggers, never waders. I grew up calling them high waters. There you go. -- Same -- idea, yeah. But what do they call it in England then? I don't know. Short pants, is that right? I don't know. I don't know. Let's check. -- That's what our -- kids call their pants. Which that's how the term shorts came about is that they were short pants and then the word pants got dropped from that and they just became shorts. I've told them multiple times that that you can just call them shorts. They have short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, short pants, and lawn pants, and it makes sense. But I also tell them these are just called shorts, but they'll always still refer to them as short pants. So in Europe in general, they would call those caprice. Oh yeah, OK. They're also Sometimes referred to as pedal pushers because I guess they would be better for biking or simply cropped trousers, and that's what they would call them in Europe. They also have some maybe perhaps archaic terms culottes, knickers, or slacks, which would fit the definition of what we're talking about with clam diggers where that particular piece of the fabric that covers the leg not being extended all the way down to the ankle. But caprice seems to be the most widely and generally accepted term for what we're talking about there. And you mentioned some of the cultural things about pants. So there is the phrase about when referring to people typically in a relationship on who wears the pants in the relationship. And then like you said, that is typically the masculine role that would claim that particular term. Right? Usually if you hear she wears the pants in the relationship, that's not like a positive thing. That's saying like she's the boss, like bosses him around. Correct, yes. So I don't think there's any major conspiracy, but maybe I will have to do some more research on that because I personally have not heard that, that like pants were part of the patriarchy and like men kept pants from women for control purposes or something, right? So that's what I've heard from some people. The theory goes, as far as I'm aware, it's because of pockets. And so a man wears pants with pockets so he can keep his keys and wallet with him. But a girl would wear a dress and she could not carry a wallet with her. And so it was like less of an independence. She had to have a purse with her or something like that if she needed. Money or anything. But one thing I've told people recently, even a couple of days ago, I was telling someone. If all possible, I only buy dresses and skirts that have pockets in them. And it's really popular now. It's definitely becoming the norm for dresses and skirts. That's true. I have heard the conspiracy that women's pants are not the same as men's pants when it comes to pockets, that I guess typically women's pants will have much narrower or shallower pockets, so you can't carry keys and wallets. It's more like you could just carry a business card and that's about it. It's a conspiracy, so we have to carry a purse with us. But wouldn't that also benefit the companies that produce purses? Maybe so you think it's the first people that started this problem. Yeah, I think a lot of conspiracy theories come down to control, but also money. So if there's anybody that has a vested interest in a particular outcome. Just follow the money. Yeah, I had a dress recently I bought. And I tried it on. I bought it from Amazon. It came, I tried it on. I was like, Oh, I really like it. If only it had pockets, and I put my hands on my hips and my hands slipped into the pockets, and then it was the perfect dress. I was so happy. But I don't know why it took this long for people to figure out that you can put pockets in dresses also. But I am a big fan of it. And But yeah, so pants, my pants definitely like there's no way I could keep your wallet in my. Pants. And also women's wallets, you know, you can use any wallet you want, right? There's no law, but traditionally, women's wallets are much longer. And thicker than men's. That's true. Well, there is a law though. Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 5 says a woman shall not wear a man's garment or anything pertaining to a man. So anyway, that is the particular historical context that most people seem to cite when it comes to why women were made to wear skirts and dresses and not allowed to wear pants. Which is odd because in biblical times, and I've actually heard this as sort of a rejection of that particular use of that Bible verse is that men and women back in Bible times all wore robes essentially. They're more like dresses than they were the pants we wear nowadays. Correct, they're gonna be more similar to what we would consider a dress. Yeah, once in a while I get flak and uh. casual way. I don't wanna make it sound all dramatic, but I wear dresses or skirts at least 50% of the time, maybe more. Definitely in the summer more. In the winter, I'll tend to wear pants more cause my legs get cold. But I think some people think it's a religious thing for me. And it's not, it's just a personal choice. I think they look better on me, and I think they're more comfortable. Indeed. And then I guess there's people in Europe like the Irish and Scottish that essentially wear skirts. They refer to them as kilts, gentlemen gentlemen, men, gentlemen. Would you, do you ever feel bad that you wish you had, because I can wear any day. I could wear a pair of pants or a skirt. And it's totally up to my, what I feel like that day, but you do not have that option. Do you ever feel slighted by that? No, I don't think so, but nor have I really thought about it. I mean, I think it's so culturally appropriate for men to only wear pants or capris or short pants or trousers or any of the other variety of words that we've encountered during our discussion so far that it has not crossed my mind. So you have definitely worn a dress at least twice since I've known you. Well, we can't leave our listeners hanging now, so you're gonna have to tell them. So before I tell why you wore it, was it more comfortable? Like, did you notice or you were just so self-conscious? I think I may recall as you're describing the particular instances of these things. But I feel like I wore at least athletic shorts underneath or something, so it wasn't even the full experience. Why? Because I'm a man and that's like not culturally appropriate for me to wear a dress. So I think in order to preserve my own internal comfort and decency that That I did not Do the full experience. You're worried you're gonna like walk by an air vent and it would fly up. No, it was no, purely internal. It was all in my mind, I'm sure. But it was my own internal decency and adherence to gender norms. OK. Well, the reason why we won't leave y'all hanging the Adam Moore address twice was because The first day of summer vacation, we have a tradition with our family that we call it Yes Day. Comes from the movie we watched a couple of years back and have done it since. And we have parameters around yes day, like a certain amount of money, up to a certain amount of money, and you know, no, we can't buy any live animals or we can't do anything that hurts someone or is mean and that sort of thing. But other than that, we will say yes to whatever they want. It tends to be like this kid wants McDonald's, this kid wants Buffalo Wild Wings, this kid wants sushi, so we go to 3 places for lunch and it's that kind of thing and another thing they love to do is dress us up too, and they think it's so funny to. Dress Adam and I up in whatever they want. One time I wore like basically a ball gown type look, and then I had to go to Target. It was insane. Most of the time they put me in your clothes, which. I don't think I look good in, but I can wear them. But you, they almost always at least 2 years, they put you in my dresses and then thought that was so fun. Yeah, for sure, one of those times I wore shorts and I think the other time I even wore pants underneath the dress. So like, It was not that. Like I said, the full experience. So I don't plan on it. If anybody's wondering, not planning on it. I'm perfectly happy wearing pants and shorts and have no interest in. Determining if now maybe the only way that I would. Even entertain the idea as if it was again a particular. Acceptable social norm of wearing a kilt. OK. Like if you're in a wedding for a buddy and he has all his groomsmen. You're in Scotland and he wants everyone to wear a kilt. Sure, absolutely. You do that. Would you wear something underneath it? Whatever the traditional garb, yeah, like you're supposed to. I think it's full commando, I guess so. What if we were on vacation? Would you like, say we went to Scotland for vacation. I guess I would not seek out the opportunity, but like if it presented itself and was there, -- I would be open to -- it. OK. You were. Again, it's not a dress. It's another cultural thing, but one year we went to Hawaii and they chose you for some dance. And do you remember that they just put it up the -- clothing over -- your clothing I do remember that but that was. I don't even know what they call it, but it was definitely more kilt-ish style that you wore and danced in front of everyone. It was really fun. -- That's -- true. So, lots of interesting things to consider as it relates to culture and Gender roles and the things that are culturally. And socially acceptable. And also how that impacts the formation of words, even words as simple as pants. How many pairs of pants do you think? The average American has. I don't know, we can, I suppose, ask AI because that is something that I wanted to discuss before we conclude this episode is that there is a phrase that says, quote, clothing produced to clothe people two times over, end quote. And this particular phrase refers to a widely cited statistic in the sustainable fashion movement. That enough clothing has been produced already within the modern age to clothe humanity for the next 6 generations. Oh wow. And there's some other statistics that are interesting here that global clothing production has more than doubled between the years 2000 and 2014, that the average consumer buys 60% more clothing than two decades ago. But only keeps each item for half as long. And that a lot of this clothing does not get reused and an estimated 85% of these particular clothing and textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated. And then there's also another statistic that says 40% of clothing produced is never sold. So what happens to it it just goes to The trash dump, I guess, because of the different styles or maybe it's the wrong size or people don't like the colors. I think a lot of times this will get resold to perhaps places that have more of the end of life. Clothing and garments and things like that, but that's what this particular statistic is for. Sustainable clothing usage. Essentially they are citing that, that there needs to be better. People need to do better when it comes to clothing. And the purchase thereof and the use thereof in order to reduce waste, yeah. It all sounds, yeah, I I buy into that for sure. I like the idea of the time capsules. And that's kind of a popular thing nowadays. There's like uh staple clothing you're supposed to have, and then basically you don't need anything else, if you have those items, and because they're so versatile and you can wear it like, it looks like a lot of different outfits as you mix and match, but the whole concept is you have these few staple items, then you don't need anything else or much else. That's true, and according to AI, the average person in America, according to this AI overview, owns 15 pairs of pants. Wow. So that includes all types of pants. So that can be jeans, dress pants, but these are not shorts. These are full length pants. Yes. Are they all the same size? Because I have quite a few pair, but I, but they're also different sizes. I don't know. This particular thing does not state that, so I guess that would be included in the average if people do have their skinny pants versus their comfy pants or whatever the case may be. The particular study that was done also indicates that. People said they only wear 4 of them regularly. I have 3 I have 3 pair of pants I wear. I have like more yoga-ish pants. And I have a nice pair of jeans, and then I have just like a nice everyday pair of pants. There you go, you're fit right in. But I also have other pants in my closet that. I keep saying one day I'll fit back into. TBD TBD. Another uh concept we did a couple years back, and maybe we can start it again in the new year or whatnot, but remember we flipped our hangers in our closet backwards. And then that whole concept is, when you wear something, you take it off the hanger, you wear it, and then you put the hanger on the right side. The traditional way you'd look at a coat hanger. And then in 6 months, you look and see how many. Items of clothing are still backwards, and that shows you you haven't worn it in that period of time and to get rid of it. Indeed, that may be a good exercise that we can do or maybe you, our listeners can endeavor to do in the new year. The new year's coming up. Everyone turn their clothes backwards. There you go. But then don't throw them away. What do you do to be sustainable? So, you could resell them. So there's a lot of different variety of outlets to do that. You could yard sale them, consign them to like a consignment shop, things of that nature. If you have like really fancy clothes, I guess you could list them on eBay or Facebook Marketplace or something like that. Or even if you have a particular group of clothes, you could sell those as one lot within an online listing. The thing that's probably the most simple and that we've taken advantage of is this donation. So there's a number of places that you could donate clothes, though that's also sort of a racket because some of the places that you donate clothes say right on the donation bin that it's a for-profit company, but I guess it's better than going in the garbage. I mean, at least somebody hopefully will get some use out of it and Somebody's making some money off of it, but at the same time, it's providing some people jobs. So I guess it's not all terrible, but there are some clothing resale capitalists that are taking advantage of people that are donating clothes, I suppose. Right, yeah. It is hard, because those are the easiest ones typically to drop off to. Like, I like the concept of like a shelter, especially for your clothes that uh you have purged a lot of, a lot of professional-ish clothing. That I think a lot of gentlemen would enjoy or be appreciative of, so they can get jobs or whatnot. And look professional at their careers. But those places, we don't have any necessarily super close to us, it's a drive to drop them off, which is probably worth it. But yeah, there's the closest place to drop off for us is for profit. So it's like, how far out of our way do we want to go do good, quote unquote. Right. Yeah, I guess my bottom line is that as long as it's not going in the trash, that even if it's somebody is making some money off of it. That at least it will hopefully be reused for a time. So perhaps you will take on the challenge of the reverse hanger clothing purge, or perhaps you will take a look at your average number of pants that you have within your own wardrobe. And if you do either of those things, you can always let us know in a comment or an email or a text message. And if you did enjoy this episode, do like, share and subscribe and somebody can learn all about pants. Yeah, I learned about pants. I think the most interesting thing I learned was about the guy Pantaloon, Pantalone, Pantalone. That's fun. I like that. It reminds me of Pantone. Which aren't they the people that do the color of the year? I don't know any of that. Well, we did a Color of the Year episode a long time ago. I believe you and they have recently announced the color of the year for 2026. Oh, what is it? Well, you'll have to tune in next time and find out. All right, and I guess I'll go back and listen to that episode we did on it. We did and we talked about the ugly yellow sweater. Oh, my, my clothes that you hate. So it's all clothing and color related. We've come full circle, I guess so. So from your friends at I Hate Talking, until next time, remember, it is only through talking that we begin the journey to understanding.