Re: CHAT: Temperature (was: I'm back!)

Steg Belsky writes:
 >
 > But now it sounds even funnier as underwear :-)  Glorious
 > Anti-Imperialist Boxers fighting against the forces of the Imperialist
 > Briefs!  I wonder if the actual Chinese Boxers themselves were ever faced
 > with being compared to underwear...
 > Actually, speaking of underwear and East Asia, my Japanese teacher said
 > that in Japanese, _pantsu_ ( from "pants") means 'underwear' - and
 > _shotsu_ (from "shorts") means 'panties'!  I think they did that on
 > purpose, just to mess with English-speakers ;-) .
 >

In the case of _pantsu_, the Japanese have sensibly adopted an
anglicism in its Rightpondian sense.  I don't know about _shotsu_,
though.  Incidentally, the normal Japanese word for trousers, _zubon_,
is IIUC a loan from French, _jupon_ which my dictionary gives as
"waist petticoat".