Pant Rant

Today, I am a worried man. Aside of the usual panics and quibbles that distress me, there is an extra load bearing down upon my shoulders. I am scared we may lose the greatest word in the English language. Pants.

The basis of this fear lies in the creeping Americanisation of our culture. Our traditions are changing. The Senior Prom and Trick or Treat have become an integral part of our youngsters’ development. People sit on couches rather than settees, and wear shades rather than sunglasses. A checkout girl at the supermarket even recently told me to “have a nice day”.

Well I’m sorry missy, but I’m British, and I have absolutely no intention of having a ‘nice’ day. I shall have a rank, fucking miserable day, as is my wont, and no amount of nauseating, sickly sweet rhetoric will change that.

Our overweight cousins from across the Atlantic are causing linguistic confusion by mixing up the meaning of the word pants. When they say pants, they mean trousers. When they say underpants, they mean actual pants. How long before the first British child adopts this misuse and spreads the foul affectation to the rest of our youth?

We must resist at all costs. We must cling on to our love of pants, the same way their sturdy elastic lovingly clings to our waists. Pants are funny. Pants are the heart and soul of our sense of Britishness. And most importantly of all, pants are not, and must never become, trousers.

It is for this exact reason I shall today be writing a stiff letter to the President of the America, insisting he and his nation of obese, gun-wielding lunatics desist from damaging our culture any further, or else run the risk of incurring our wrath. No longer shall we meekly bend over and allow the star-spangled hand of the United States to ram its precocious, fledgling language up our British bottoms.

For we here in these isles know the true meaning of pants. We were wearing pants when the Yankees were still in short trousers. Long before the declaration of independence had even been signed, we here in the old world were adjusting our delicate bits and examining our gussets for skidmarks.

That’s right, Mr Trump. It was we who invented this language which you pervert on a daily basis, and it is we who shall define its parameters. A pant is a pant. A trouser is a trouser, and that’s the way it shall stay.

And before you go off to eat your fourteen-pound steakburger, with your AK-47 and your banjo balanced across your knee, I suggest you take some time to think about how you could change your linguistic usage to best suit our needs.

I am suggesting you take immediate steps to insist all American trousers from now on be referred to as over-pants, thus negating the need to place the unnecessary word ‘under’ in front of the classically elegant word ‘pants’.

Take heed of my warning. Wars have been fought for less.

Yours, in pants,

SJ Smith