Timeline for Etymology of "Scantily clad"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 10, 2015 at 5:06 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | In my second comment above, "Sanmuel" should be "Samuel." | |
| May 10, 2015 at 5:05 | history | edited | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Fixed typo: lad --> clad
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| May 9, 2015 at 0:51 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | ... Neither "scantily clad" (through 1827) nor "scantily clothed" (through 1834) shows any similar instance of being applied to revealing clothing worn by choice by fashionable European ladies. I can't account for the difference in usage, although I hasten to add that the split isn't complete: One instance of "scantily dressed" (from 1825) refers not to fashionable ladies, but to the native inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego (near Cape Horn). Also, "scantily dressed" is considerably less common than "scantily clad" and "scantily clothed) during the period 1750–1900. | |
| May 9, 2015 at 0:36 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | ... On the other hand, the earliest match for "scantily dressed"—from Sanmuel Jackson, Gleanings in England (1803), uses the term to refer to skimpy clothing adopted as a fashion choice, albeit with the joking pretense that the clothing not worn goes to the poor to alleviate their lack of clothing. Two other examples from the early 1800s (one by Washington Irving) use "scantily dressed" similarly. ... | |
| May 9, 2015 at 0:27 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | The earliest Google Books match for "scantily clothed" is from Jessie and Her Friends: With the History of a Lost Purse, published by the (British) Religious Tract Society. In that book, the scantily clothed individuals are impoverished children living in a Kentish village. Some of the early 19th-century matches (as in the case of "scantily clad") include descriptions landscapes containing sparse vegetation. ... | |
| May 8, 2015 at 19:55 | comment | added | Hot Licks | Playing with Ngram, it appears that "scantily clothed" was more popular than "scantily clad" up until about 1880. | |
| May 8, 2015 at 16:44 | history | answered | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |