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Regular Feature
Greetings from the Outskirts of Kyoto vol.48
INOUE Shōichi (Director-General)
October 21, 2024
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- Greetings from the Outskirts of Kyoto vol.48
I am an old man. When I hear the word pantsu (“pants” in English), I think of underwear. But young people think differently. It seems the first thing that springs to their minds is “trousers.” The fact is that in Japan today two different meanings of the Japanese word pantsu co-exist.
The use of pantsu in the sense of “underwear” comes from British English. British people do not refer to what we call zubon as “pants.” The word they use is “trousers.” At the same time, in American English, “pants” refers only to “trousers.” Americans don’t use the word for underwear. For underwear they use “shorts” among other words.
British English and American English are decidedly different when it comes to the meaning of “pants.” Unlike the Japanese word pantsu, the English word “pants” cannot be taken to mean two different things.
In Japan, then, British and American styles co-exist. Or perhaps it is a case of linguistic segregation? I for one think that the American style is making steady in-roads. Tracking the changes in vocabulary usage looks like a topic for international research into Japanese culture.
Illustration by Inoue Shōichi
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