Updike: suntans

[Marius Hancu]

Hello:

---
[rushing to get away from his wife]

In haste he takes clean Jockey pants, T-shirts, and socks from a
drawer, three shirts in cellophane and blue cardboard from another, a
pair of laundered suntans from a third, draws his two suits and a
sports shirt from the closet, and wraps the smaller clothing in the
suits to form a bundle he can carry.

John Updike, Rabbit, Run
---

"suntans": pants? undefined clothes?

Thanks.
Marius Hancu

[Harrison Hill]

It makes sense as a word for something you get suntanned in, so "swimming cozzy" is my guess.

[Horace LaBadie]

In article
<019cfe7e-7de0-4057...@eb6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

Suntans were khaki summer shirts that were part of the military uniform.
You can see them in WWII movies set in the Pacific.

[tony cooper]

"Suntans" - light-colored tan shirts - I got, but "Jockey pants" seems
like a translation into English by someone who isn't familiar with the
idiomatic terms. We'd say "Jockey shorts". Even "Jockey underpants"
seems wrong.

Some over-theres would call them "y-fronts".



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

Only if they are Y-fronted.

In BrE they fall into the general category of underpants.
The UK Jockey website lists "Brief, "Y-Front Brief", "Short Trunk" and
"Boxer Trunk". I think you average Br shopper would scatter some "s"es
around briefs, trunks.

Looking at a major retailer's site the differences are that briefs are
legless, trunks have short legs and are close-fitting, and boxers have
short legs and are loose. The smallest brief are "slips".

Slips
http://www.marksandspencer.com/4-Pack-Pure-Cotton-Slips/dp/B005ANQR6I

Briefs
http://www.marksandspencer.com/Pack-Classic-Cotton-Assorted-Briefs/dp/B002F74NMC

Trunks
http://www.marksandspencer.com/3-Pack-Cotton-Trunks-Stretch/dp/B004FWLXSM

Boxers
http://www.marksandspencer.com/Pack-Pure-Cotton-Knitted-Boxers/dp/B003T9A1ZS

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[tony cooper]

The idea that I would buy "slips" and wear them makes me giggle. Over
here, women wear slips...or used to.

[Lanarcam]

Cross cultural differences, here, men wear "slips" and women wear
"culottes". you would be frowned upon entering a lingerie shop
and asking for slips.

[Snidely]

Lanarcam used his keyboard to write :

Further than that. An American woman's slip is a chemise-like garment
meant to be worn under a dress to either keep it from being see-through
or to give it a smoother "hang" or "fall".

"Pardon, your slip is showing" is a hint that you are in slight
disarray, and was borrowed by the Reader's Digest for their humor
section dealing with malapropisms and such.

/dps

--
Who, me? And what lacuna?

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:50:25 -0400, tony cooper

Ditto here. I have never heard ayn male referring to that type of
underpants as "slips". It is probably a category name used in the trade.
Other retailers sell them as simply "briefs", "mini briefs" or "slip
briefs".

[Mike L]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:58:45 +0100, Lanarcam <lana...@yahoo.fr>
wrote:

In English, a "slip" is usually a light petticoat, as in "Your slip is
showing". Of recent decades, though, it has been applied to men's very
brief underpants; but I met it once as early as the 1950s in the form
"bathing slip", meaning a man's or boy's swimming costume. That '50s
use seems to have been an outlier or maverick, though - possibly a
bilingual, er, slip of the pen.

I don't seem to be able to find the usage in OED; but maybe that's
just me.

--
Mike.

[Peter Moylan]

To complicate matters, in Australia culottes are not underwear. They're
a woman's garment that is halfway between a skirt and shorts.

--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

[Marius Hancu]

On Mar 24, 10:08 am, tony cooper <tony.cooper...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >---
> >[rushing to get away from his wife]
>
> >In haste he takes clean Jockey pants, T-shirts, and socks from a
> >drawer, three shirts in cellophane and blue cardboard from another, a
> >pair of laundered suntans from a third, draws  his two suits and a
> >sports shirt from the closet, and wraps the smaller clothing in the
> >suits to form a bundle he can carry.
>
> >John Updike, Rabbit, Run
> >---
>
> >"suntans": pants? undefined clothes?
>
> "Suntans" - light-colored tan shirts - I got, but "Jockey pants" seems
> like a translation into English by someone who isn't familiar with the
> idiomatic terms.  We'd say "Jockey shorts".  Even "Jockey underpants"
> seems wrong.
>
> Some over-theres would call them "y-fronts".

From this quote later on in the novel, I don't think he means by
"suntans" shirts, nor underwear for tanning, as others suggest:

----
With keen secret relief, he at last takes off his dirty clothes and
changes into clean underwear, fresh socks, the sports shirt, and
suntans. He has to put his suede shoes back on.
-----

From this listing
suntans = pants in some "sun-affected" color

Thank you all.

Marius Hancu

[tony cooper]

Same here. My wife and daughter went out in public wearing culottes
without any embarrassment.

[Jerry Friedman]

Specifically, I think, the tan color of summer uniforms in the U.S.
Army, as Horace mentioned.

"Instead of Imperial Austrian officers in sky-blue tunics, there are
now American GIs in suntans but otherwise nothing has changed."

/Esquire/, 1955

"Regular uniforms for enlisted men were olive drab in the spring and
winter months, suntans in the warm weather. Officers generally wore
pinks with dress coats, and suntans in the summer."

/Life of the Soldier and the Airman: Volumes 27-28/, 1945

Or pants of that color for civilians.

"The formally attired Italian businessman can never be convinced that
these boys wear suntans or blue jeans because they cannot afford
better."

/The Reporter/, 1949

"Suntans are most popular in the classroom. The umbrella has become
quite popular with the men of late. 'For men, campus wear generally
consists of suntans or cords [corduroy pants] for classes, with sport
shirts or wool shirts and jacket.'"

/Men's Wear/, 1961

I believe they /were/ popular in the classroom. My alumni magazine
once carried a picture of a lecture from around 1960. As I remember,
the hall is full of nearly identical young white men, all wearing
creased tan pants and white dress shirts, except one iconoclast who is
wearing creased tan pants and a white T-shirt.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Don Phillipson]

"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:4slrm7tgcuempof88...@4ax.com...

>>Some over-theres would call them "y-fronts".
>
> Only if they are Y-fronted.
>
> In BrE they fall into the general category of underpants.
> The UK Jockey website lists "Brief, "Y-Front Brief", "Short Trunk" and
> "Boxer Trunk". I think you average Br shopper would scatter some "s"es
> around briefs, trunks.
>
> Looking at a major retailer's site the differences are that briefs are
> legless, trunks have short legs and are close-fitting, and boxers have
> short legs and are loose. The smallest brief are "slips".
>
> Slips
> http://www.marksandspencer.com/4-Pack-Pure-Cotton-Slips/dp/B005ANQR6I

Slips = briefs must have been borrowed directly from German (where (sing.)
slip = underpants without legs i.e. briefs) but not long ago: unknown in
the
UK in the 1960s.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Don Phillipson]

"Peter Moylan" <inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote in message
news:9rKdnQKXv7VRV_PS...@westnet.com.au...

> To complicate matters, in Australia culottes are not underwear. They're
> a woman's garment that is halfway between a skirt and shorts.

Also commonly called a divided skirt.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Mar 24, 8:48 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:08:57 -0400, tony cooper

> <tony.cooper...@gmail.com> wrote:
...

> >"Suntans" - light-colored tan shirts - I got, but "Jockey pants" seems
> >like a translation into English by someone who isn't familiar with the
> >idiomatic terms.  We'd say "Jockey shorts".  Even "Jockey underpants"
> >seems wrong.
>
> >Some over-theres would call them "y-fronts".
>
> Only if they are Y-fronted.
>
> In BrE they fall into the general category of underpants.
> The UK Jockey website lists "Brief, "Y-Front Brief", "Short Trunk" and
> "Boxer Trunk".

The American site lists "Midway(TM) Brief", "Boxer", "Boxer Brief",
"Trunk", "Brief", "Bikini", "String Bikini", and "Thong". I think
your "Y-Front Brief" is our "Brief". And that's what Americans mean
by "Jockey shorts"--it's a genericized trademark. In other words, I
agree with Tony.

> I think you average Br shopper would scatter some "s"es
> around briefs, trunks.

...

As would your average American shopper, with some for "boxer" as
well. The garment trade speaks a singular form of English.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Mike L]

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:13:21 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Mar 24, 8:48 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
>wrote:

[...]

>
>> I think you average Br shopper would scatter some "s"es
>> around briefs, trunks.
>...
>
>As would your average American shopper, with some for "boxer" as
>well. The garment trade speaks a singular form of English.

Ooh! The trouser, sir! Suits YOU, sir!

The rest of us do the reverse with a pruning tool. Because of
"scissors" and "shears", almost all of us say "secateurs", even though
the original French is singular in form. OED says "rare in sing." but
I did see the singular form on the packaging of some in B&Q this
afternoon. The dictionary's earliest examples carried the acute
accent.

I'm trying to decide if it's a false memory that I long ago heard
"corsets" for a single item.

--
Mike.

[tony cooper]

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:13:21 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>

>The American site lists "Midway(TM) Brief", "Boxer", "Boxer Brief",
>"Trunk", "Brief", "Bikini", "String Bikini", and "Thong". I think
>your "Y-Front Brief" is our "Brief". And that's what Americans mean
>by "Jockey shorts"--it's a genericized trademark.

My brother moved from the US to Denmark forty-some years ago. It was
a temporary move that ended up being a permanent move.

For the first few years, I sent him packages of things that he
couldn't get in Denmark that he was used to here. In one of his
letters, he asked me to send him some "jockey shorts, but make sure
they are Munsingwear". Evidently, he could not find comfortable
underwear in Denmark.

Completely aside...I wanted to check the spelling of Munsingwear
because that brand is not one that I look for. Googling produced this
hit:
http://compare.ebay.com/like/320857697445?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

I am at a complete loss of about why anyone would want to buy "vintage
underwear". The usual use of "vintage" on eBay is something that is
old, but not old enough to be an antique. "Vintage" things, on eBay,
are usually used things.

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

There are presumably people who buy such items to add to a collection.
While an unused item might generally be better than a used one, a used
one is better than an empty space in the collection.

[Katy Jennison]

On 26/03/2012 05:10, tony cooper wrote:

>
> I am at a complete loss of about why anyone would want to buy "vintage
> underwear". The usual use of "vintage" on eBay is something that is
> old, but not old enough to be an antique. "Vintage" things, on eBay,
> are usually used things.
>

Given that the Ebay entry lists them as "new without tags", and so
persumably unworn, I can only suppose that they're bought by people with
vintage bodies, who like the fit.

--
Katy Jennison

[Mike L]

A friend once mentioned in conversation that she was a furniture
designer. Her interlocutor asked, "Do you do modern or antique
furniture?"

--
Mike.

[Peter Duncanson (BrE)]

Well, she could have designed new, original, antique furniture.

Or more sensibly, she might have designed new furniture in antique
style. Retro, innit. ("I can design this stuff walking backwards.")

[swg...@gmail.com]

Not a shirt in Updike’s usage. The reverend tucked his shirt into his suntans. They are pants of some short. Probably khakis.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 20:11:19 -0700 (PDT), swg...@gmail.com wrote:

>Not a shirt in Updike’s usage. The reverend tucked his shirt into his suntans. They are pants of some short. Probably khakis.

noun, ( used with a plural verb)

1. a tan military uniform for summer wear.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/suntans