Distress signals 2

Following my earlier post, I started thinking about the various meanings of the word "distressed".

The most topical cluster of meanings seems to be the financial ones: applied to companies, "experiencing financial difficulty or near bankruptcy", applied to assets, "offered for sale at a low price due to liquidation, insolvency, or foreclosure".

I had a vague idea that phrases like "distressed assets" and "distressed debt" stemmed from the 1980s junk bond era, so was surprised to find the word used in both these senses as long ago as the nineteenth century, in contexts that would not look too out of place in today's financial press. The Times in 1866 reported on tightening credit conditions, writing that the "leading banks..vehemently shut out even the smallest applications of any of the distressed companies for momentary assistance".  The OED cites an 1899 article from The Chicago Tribune which commented (apparently in reference to some early bailout or aid for speculators fallen on hard times): "If the relief of distressed stock gamblers alone were contemplated nobody outside of Wall street [sic] would defend the proposition".

A comparatively modern usage is the fashion/design one - as in "distressed denim" or "distressed furniture". But again, it's not as modern as I assumed - the OED shows that it was in use as early as 1940 to refer to reproduction furniture made to look antique through "simulated marks of age and wear".

One sense which does not feel very current is the OED's note that the primary definition of "afflicted with pain or trouble" applies specifically to people living in reduced circumstances. This nuance seems to be disappearing - to refer to "distressed gentlefolk", or people living "in distressed circumstances" now has a quaint, old-fashioned air, evocative of Victorian philanthropy. Dogberry tells me that there is a sign on Greek Street in London (not London's Greek Street) offering aid to "ladies in distress", but I have never been able to find it.

A damsel in distress

The Sartorial Singular

I have just received an email inviting me to buy Christmas presents at Sweaty Betty, which for the uninitiated is a shop selling fashionable sports and fitness clothes for women - in some cases so beautifully designed that customers are inspired to take up certain sports simply for the opportunity to wear the clothes.

One item in particular caught my eye: the "unwind pant". Pants, of course, is an American word for what the British call trousers. Although it is still considered an Americanism, it is gaining ground in Britain for terms referring to sportswear. "Sweatpants" is far more common than the unpleasant-sounding "sweat trousers". "Jogging pants" and "tracksuit pants", meanwhile, are used about half as frequently as "jogging trousers" and "tracksuit trousers" - although "bottoms", as in "jogging bottoms" and "tracksuit bottoms", remains the most popular word by a wide margin.

But it was not the word "pant" in itself, nor the use of the verb "unwind" as an adjective which struck me - it was the use of the singular. I have never referred to a "pant" or a "trouser", any more than I would use "a glass" to mean a pair of spectacles - it is always "pants" or "a pair of pants". "Pants" is what is known as a plurale tantum - a word that only ever appears in the plural form - and "pant" is a bizarre and grammatically incorrect back-formation.

However, the use of the fashion singular - identified here by the wonderful Hadley Freeman, although even she seems uncertain about the word "pant" - is becoming more and more common, mostly in marketing and advertising copy (as in the Gap advert above) but also in the words of designers themselves. We can probably expect to hear more about "the pant", "the trouser" and "the legging", although I hope that we will be spared "the bottom", at least in reference to sportswear.

A week or so ago I surprised myself by using the word "jean" in the singular - something like "that's a nice jean", or "I like a jean with a high waist". Thus fashion-speak insinuates itself into everyday life.

* Curiously, the only recent reference I have found to "sweat trousers" appears in a Financial Times fashion review).