2010-11-15
2 分钟This is a download from the BBC.
For more information and our terms of use, go to bbcworldservice.com podcasts this is the KEEP your English UP to date podcast from BBCLearningEnglish.com in this week's program, John Ato explores the origin, meaning and use of the phrase go commando.
Linguists talk of lexical gaps, concepts or things that don't have a particular word or phrase with which we can refer to them.
Now here's a concept to conjure to go about in public fully clothed as far as your outer clothing is concerned, but without any underpants.
You might not find it surprising that until quite recently, English had no single expression to refer to this curious practice.
But now it has two One is free balling, and the other, which in the last few years has become quite widely known, is go commando.
This seems to have originated perhaps as early as the 1970s as a slang term on American college campuses, but the reasons behind it remain mysterious.
Now, commandos are soldiers who go on surprise raids into enemy territory, and some have claimed there may be a practical explanation for the phrase.
Perhaps that commandos find that underpants are uncomfortable and restrict their movement, or even waste too much time to take off if they suddenly need to go to the toilet.
Or is it more symbolic that strong, brave, active men, as we suppose commandos to be, don't wear underpants?
We'll probably never know for sure, but it's comforting that such a glaring gap in English vocabulary has at last been filled.
That was the KEEP your English UP to DATE podcast.
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