(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

I went with maaseru to South Keys today to browse at Chapter's. Yes, I bought a book - The Firefly French/English Visual Dictionary which is unutterably cool. It has words for things I didn't know in English, like muntin. Does everyone here know what a muntin is? Gad. I see them all the time. Didn't even know it had a word. In French it is petit montant. Who knew?

Then there's a picture of something I would have called long johns, which is identified in French as combinaison, a word I know. But in English they call it a 'union suit', a phrase I don't recall ever hearing. Chambers calls long johns "underpants with long legs", which means the upper part is missing, and they don't have 'union suit'. Merriam-Webster says long johns means 'long underwear' (which begs the issue of whether it has sleeves and a top part), while Cambridge online has no listing for long johns, but only long underwear, which then says 'Long underwear (also long johns) is warm, tight-fitting underwear reaching to the feet and hands,' explicitly including the upper part and sleeves. So who the heck uses the phrase "union suit", which is in none of these dictionaries online?

Wikipedia came to my rescue: a union suit is a 19th century version of long johns created in Utica, New York, which isn't far away from here, but culturally different - and, it seems, linguistically different as well.

I do love dictionaries.

After Chapters, maaseru and I went to Cotton Ginny, and discovered they've closed up, with a sign on the door (beside all the SALE signs) saying that they've been closed down for failure to pay the rent.

Damn.

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Grew up in VT - recall both union suit and long johns being used to refer to winter underwear. Don't recall being told how to verbally distinguish the one-piece and two-piece varieties. Most from my youth I recall as one-piece.

Don't recall hearing union suit much if at all for a very long time. I noticed, growing up, a lot of advertisement encouraging folks to shop for underwear and other garments with a union label on them. I assumed "union suit" came from something similar, but if it is 19th century, I presume it predated a lot of union activity.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Maybe "union suit" was a sort of New England term? (Sorry, I don't know whether VT is in New England or not.) I think the term may be falling out of use.

I think here we tend to say "long underwear" or "long johns" to cover just about every winter wear underwear eventuality.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Grew up in New Hampshire: agree that union suit and long johns are interchangeable terms for long underwear. So perhaps "union suit" is a New England thing?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The fun of having a discussion like this is that you're sometimes able to trace things geographically like that. It would make sense that 'union suit' was the term used where Union suits were sold, which would quite likely be the NE USA.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

UK: Here we call that garment "combinations" in English (plural like trousers, pants and knickers). It was a long time before I discovered what "union suit" meant.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've heard 'combinations' and would know what that was, but wouldn't have used it myself. But it's the first thing I thought of when I saw the French word.

[gillo]

I think a "union suit" means top and bottom are joined in a union. Like "combinations", which is the UK term. I'd definitely only use "long johns" for the trouser part.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There, you see? A difference. I'd use 'long johns' for the whole thing and 'long underwear' if it's just the bottom part. Very important garments in a Canadian winter, in my opinion.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

Cotton Ginny closed? Oh, no! That's really too bad. I liked that store. Is the discount one closed as well?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether all the Cotton Ginnys in the city are gone or not. I'm hoping just that one. I'll miss it!

Cotton Ginny did go out of business before, but it came back. Maybe that will happen again.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Och, ai, much too bad about Cotton Ginny! I'm sorry that happened.

"Union suit" is an old-fashioned term for... uh, union suit. I hadn't known that anyone apart from my farm-dwelling Great-Uncle Clark still wore them, till I discovered that almost all deep-mine coal miners use them (brother of a college friend was in Mine Safety program, had to dress like a miner and go down into the mines with the miners, in order to fulfill his education -- and he wore them, unapologetically, when he did so). Mostly, it's a handy thing for climates or circumstances in w hich a person chooses not to want to change their undergarments very often -- cold climates, or persnickety hermits [g]. But, mostly, it's the sheer convenience: guy a couple of these, and your underwear purchases are done for a year or so (till they wear out). And you don't expose much skin to the cold air when you change. And you can sleep in them.

Reminding me of Great-Uncle Clark again; I hear he slept in his. And you may have seen one of the Back to the Future movies in which Marty McFly jumps out of bed and starts to practice his quick-draw by strapping on his gunbelt over his union suit... um, with one of the buttons of the trap-door backflap undone, whooo, risque.

It's an American thing, yep. You hit that one. what is a muntin?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, those things are handy. I'm well familiar with long johns. Just not with "Union suits" as an alternate term. Another case where Canadians and Americans speak different languages?

A muntin is a central vertical strip of wood between two windows in a door, or two panels in a door.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntin

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Thinking of the time and culture in which it was useful for people to have a name for that. Cool.

"Union suit" -- yeah, American. At one time, according to lore, they had to be red to be a real union suit.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The picture in the book is white. I guess they made both kinds.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I see, to remember reading about "union suits" in Louis May Alcott books.

At home, we always called them "long johns".

B-- says he has never heard of union suits: he said they always referred to long johns.

Perhaps American vs Canadian?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

American vs Canadian does look like the most obvious explanation. Everyone I have asked in person says either that they've never heard of union suits, or they've heard of them - in American novels.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Another US region being heard from: union suit older (in my understanding, didn't look up) as term for long johns, though both understood as equal but not worn in my family. I would use the term long underwear only for bottoms. I did wear longs during time at New England prep school. And I'm surprised you didn't know, considering where you live: New England = Maine, NH, VT, Mass, CT, RI, though very northern NY (above Albany) seems to fit in culture but not in definition.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell - and I know relatively little about the NE of the United States, except for having been through there travelling - the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes are a mighty divide and it's a whole nother world over there.

This might be different in Acadian culture, which overlaps the New Brunswick/Maine border, but is so far east of me I don't even know much about it.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Jeepers! I would never have guessed the divide was that deep over such a short distance!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I would never have guessed the divide was that deep over such a short distance!

Well, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes are pretty darn big. Even small rivers in Europe divide nations and major languages.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

After I wrote you, I googled the distance between Albany & Ottawa - 325 miles, much farther than I thought. Even so ...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It isn't so much the distance - Toronto must be about the same and it seems close to Ottawa. It's the barriers: political (i.e., there's the Canada/US border), the difficulty of crossing the St. Lawrence (you have to go over one of only a few bridges, or find a bus that goes that way via Toronto, or take a train from Montreal), the cultural ties (I don't know anyone from Albany, or anyone with family in Albany, or anything remotely like that), and the incentive (why would a person want to go to Albany?)

As a matter of fact, I have been to Albany, for a science fiction convention. And I had a good time. But it certainly didn't seem close in any way. I might as well have been in Seattle or Madison, culturally speaking.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

I was just using Albany as a distance point - it's not truly New England. Not far enough north in NY, and anyway, true New England starts at the VT-NY border & goes east.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm never really sure what "New England" means so I never use the phrase. It's like the English "Midlands" - I know what it is, I know roughly where it is, but I don't understand it enough to be specific, so I avoid embarrassing myself by not mentioning it.

And in any case, it seems very far away. Ten hours by bus or train? Thereabouts. Fun to visit, but not somewhere to visit often.