Can any Americans out there tell me the difference between "a pant suit" and "a suit"?
A pant suit is specifically for women. It's intended to differentiate from a skirt suit, which is also a thing. It's generally assumed that when men wear a suit, that they will wear pants. Although some seem to have trouble keeping them on. @Pedalville
@SobaFett Surely then the two terms should be "suit" and "skirt suit"?
@Pedalville @SobaFett It's because "skirt suit" was the default for women in offices, so "pant suit" was the variation. Women weren't allowed to wear trousers in many office jobs and even fancy restaurants well into the 1970s. Old fashion terms die hard, I guess.
Lawyer friend of ours has an amusing story about Abbie Hoffman's sister, pants, and a courtroom. @sunita @Pedalville
@Pedalville @SobaFett Hah! Yes, I was thinking about that. In our multilingual/multicultural Masto environment, I changed pants to trousers in my reply. 😁
@Pedalville pant suit to "suit" is the blouse to the dress shirt
@Pedalville ie it's a formal (typically used in business settings) outfit worn by women that is an adaptation of an outfit historically worn by men.
@nick Thanks... I get that... I just don't understand the need to add the "pant", it seems so unnecessary.
I guess it's because here in the UK people tend to just use "suit", in general usage nobody feels the need to specify the format of the bottom half.
@Pedalville at a time, women paired blazers with skirts or dresses. Changing to trousers was a new outfit so it got a new term.
it's easy to forget that for a long time (in the past, which was more overtly sexist than now), women didn't wear pants as a "rule" and pants were synonymous with male "superiority". this gave rise to the the idiom "who wears the pants in the family."
@Pedalville I am also curious to know this! :D