A 1789 painting of Elijah Boardman, later a U.S. senator from Connecticut, wearing one kind of unmentionables, a.k.a. knee breeches. An image of a man in a powdered wig, tan coat, dark knee breeches, and white hose standing in front of a writing desk with shelves containing books and a closet filled with fabrics.
13 June 2021
Euphemisms can pose a problem for etymologists because it’s not always clear to exactly what the euphemism refers. Such is the case with the word unmentionables. That word can refer to various articles of clothing or to various body parts. Unmentionables is most often thought today to be a Victorian euphemism for underwear, but that’s not strictly accurate. While the word was used in the Victorian era and while it could refer to underwear, the euphemism predates Victoria and more often than not, referred to something other than underwear.
The earliest use of the term that I know of appears in the London newspaper The Argus for 11 April 1791. Exactly what article of clothing is unmentionable here is a bit ambiguous. The use of “leather stocking fashion” makes on think it refers to stockings, made of leather, that are gartered above the knee, made famous in the next century in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. But the headline’s use of “breeches” indicates what is being referred to are knee-breeches or knickerbockers (cf. knickerbockers). Since leatherstockings were typically worn by those working outdoors, the use here may indicate the fashion is considered crude and rustic rather than referring to a specific type of clothing. The objection to knee-breeches here is not because they expose what should be private, but rather because they are considered a horrid new fashion:
Mrs. MONTAGUE and the BREECHES.
In a conversation held the other day at Mrs. MONTAGUE’S, in Portman Square, among a party of blue stocking Ladies, the topic ran on the present leather stocking fashion—and strange as it may appear, in a whole hour’s discussion, the fair debaters never once uttered the name this odious part of a man’s dress; upon which Mrs. MONTAGUE declared they were truly and properly to be called unmentionables, as the prudes of the age had titled them.
While it doesn’t use the word unmentionables, this 1792 song, “The Golden Days We Now Possess,” uses the synonym inexpressibles to refer to underwear, the first use of the concept to refer to those articles of clothing. Again, there is some ambiguity as small clothes in the 1790s could refer to knee-breeches as well as underwear, but the context of this specific poem (i.e., the “promontories” are the buttocks and the discussion is of women’s fashion) tells us what is meant:
Such promontories, sure, may be styl’d inaccessibles,
As our small-cloaths, by prudes, are pronounc’d inexpressibles;
And the taste of our beaus won’t admit of dispute, Sir,
When they ride in their slippers, and walk about in boots, Sir.
But as mentioned, because it’s a euphemism, sometimes it’s difficult to parse exactly what is meant by unmentionables. For example, the following from Wright’s Leeds Intelligencer of 13 November 1815 might be thought to refer to women’s underwear, but it actually refers to women wearing trousers on stage. The key to unlocking the meaning is the Latin phrase, which translates as “what is characteristic for men”:
An eminent schoolmaster being asked why he disliked to see an actress in unmentionables, said, it was contrary to propria quae maribus.
The use of unmentionables, as opposed to the above inexpressibles, to refer to underwear is documented by 1833, still prior to the Victorian era. It appears in the New York paper Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard of 14 September 1833. Ironically, the writer acknowledges the euphemism’s ambiguity by mentioning what is unmentionable:
P.S. A few pair of red flannel unmentionables are wanted. [signed] red flannel drawers
And as late as the 1880s unmentionables could still be used unironically to refer to trousers, as this advertisement in the 5 December 1883 St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat indicates. Although, while not exactly ironic, the discussion of vocabulary does display a dislike for the term, preferring plain speech:
“Nothing in a name.”
So Shakspeare [sic] says, but we can’t altogether agree with the eminent bard. We don’t think a rose would smell half as sweet if it should be reclassified among the flowers as a “cabbage.” The plebeian title would detract from its beauty and we wouldn’t be satisfied with the change. Among our customers some gents insist that pantaloons are “INEXPRESSIBLES,” some say “UNMENTIONABLES,” some “TROUSERS,” others “PANTS.” But the fact remains unaltered that they are PANTALOONS, and the FAMOUS is now displaying the largest stock in all-wool fabrics from $3 50 up to $7 ever seen in this city of mud and dust. If you need a pair come to
FIFTH AND MORGAN
Largest Clothing, Shoe, Hat, Furnishing Goods and Cloak Dealers in the West.
But unmentionables referred not just to clothing. It could also refer to body parts. But again, which anatomical part varied with the context. Here is an early use of the sense from the 1 August 1824 issue of Bell’s Life in London in an article discussing a carriage accident. Exactly where the good gentleman was injured is left purposefully vague:
We forgot to mention a very awkward compound fracture in Sir Edmund Nagle’s unmentionables—a fracture which was the more distressing to the gallant Admiral, inasmuch as it made it impossible for him to render any material assistance to the Ladies. However, he was on horseback next day as well as if nothing had happened.
But this description of a boxing match in the London Morning Chronicle of 6 July 1825 makes it clear through context that unmentionables refers to the buttocks:
Round 1. Stockman, on coming to the scratch, could not fail to see that Sam stood well over him; but still he seemed determined on mischief, and measuring his length, he opened his battery with a left-handed hit. Sam was awake, stopped the blow, and returned in earnest. The men fought to a rally, when Sam, after the manner of Dick Curtis, drew back, and as Stockman followed, he jobbed [sic] him with his left on the nose repeatedly. At length Stockman fell on his unmentionables [cheers for Sam].
And it seems that referring to any part of the body, even one as innocent as the foot, could be labeled as unmentionable. Here is one from the Boston Spectator and Ladies’ Album of 23 December 1826 that uses the word to refer to a corn other sore spot on the foot:
In the banquet scene, when Macbeth shrunk from the appalling Banquo, it had such a sympathetic effect upon a gentleman who sat by my aunt, that he unluckily brought the heel of his boot in contact with an unmentionable on her toe, which set her just in sorts for harmonizing the rest of the evening.
And, of course, unmentionables could refer to the genitals. Here is one such use from the gossip column “Peeping Tom of Coventry,” which appeared in the underground London newspaper the Crim-Con Gazette of 18 May 1839. Crim-Con is short for criminal conversation, a legal euphemism for adultery, and the “peeping Tom” refers not to any voyeuristic activities of the people discussed in the column, but rather to the columnist themself, the conceit of the column being that they have spotted the illicit activity being described:
I SAW Enock Radman, the Omnibus Conductor, showing his unmentionables to little girls in Dulwich. Thinks I to myself, thinks I, You [sic] are a pretty fellow for a Conductor, and can’t conduct yourself in a better manner than that. You ought to be flogged at the cart’s tail.
So, unmentionables, while it certainly was used to refer to underwear, was widely used to refer to anything that was too distasteful, but not necessarily obscene, to be mentioned by name in polite society. And its use predated the Victorian era by nearly half a century. We often blame the Victorian era for prudery, and not without some justification, but prudery did not originate with Victoria, and it’s unfair to give a blanket assignment of all such attitudes to that era alone.
Sources:
“Fifth and Morgan” (advertisement). St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat (Missouri), 5 December 1883, 12. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.
“A Grand Field-Day for the Fancy.” Morning Chronicle (London), 6 July 1825, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. unmentionables, n.
“Life in Windsor Park.” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 1 August 1824, 5. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.
“The Luddites.” Wright’s Leeds Intelligencer, 13 November 1815, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
“Miseries of a Bachelor.” The Boston Spectator and Ladies’ Album (Massachusetts), 23 December 1826, 405. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society.
“Mrs. Montague and the Breeches.” The Argus, 11 April 1791, 3. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. unmentionable, adj. and n.
“Peeping Tom of Coventry.” The Crim-Con Gazette, 39.2, 18 May 1839, 1. London Low Life: Street Culture, Social Reform, and the Victorian Underworld. Londonlowlife.amdigital.co.uk.
Sime, David, ed. “Song XC. The Golden Days We Now Possess.” The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany. Edinburgh: W. Gordon, et al. 1792, 210. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
Image credit: Ralph Earl, 1789. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain image.