In English, why are the words that identify leg-covering garments always plural, even when referring to a single clothing entity? Pants, slacks, trousers, shorts, overalls, knickers, breeches, tights, trousers, bloomers, jeans… I am wearing a pair of pants, and they are too big is such a grammatically strange sentence that I’m, like, troubled by it.
“A pair of ____s” implies a dichotomy of nether apparel, suggesting the usage evolved from how these clothes were once assembled. Tailors would sew one pant, then another pant, then converge them to construct a pair of pants, 2 pairs of pants, 1000 pairs of pants (equal to 2000 individual ‘pant.’) Grammatically, pants are similar to socks and shoes, though in practice they remained distinct individual entities as pants converged into one garment. A skirt, dress, shirt, jacket, but never a pant. A pant is something one does during spinning class when Paula cranks up ‘Neutron Dance’ and screams “Sprud! Sprud!”
