[Allen Tice]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

'Pants' is Brit slang for no good at all.

Why, pray tell? What's it all about, Johnny?

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Chris. There is only one place in Canterbury where the Staggers can be obtained (right wing yokels that we are) and I couldn't spare more than five minutes, being parked upon two yellow lines. The winning Wendyverse appears in her works somewhere. I agree that the word has to go REspectaBILity, but such is the iron will of the metre that it does, it does. It's true about Kennedy's socks.

I have to insist on NIKolas SARkozy, but I reckon, the name being French, that is a better approximation than Brit sar-KOzy, and I've got my wife's afreement o that - A level French to my O level.

Allen, I don't know why pants means what it does. It may follow naturally from the use of 'Knickers!' as an expletive meaning 'Bother!', which I actually use myself. The pants are obviously underpants rather than trousers. We don't call trousers pants, not nohow. Come on, Ann, you will know this! A learned woman, she!

What foulmouthed Sarko actually said is recounted by Rod Liddle in this week's Speccie. What he may have said about Barak to someone else we can only guess at.

Added later. There is (says a slang dictionary) some schoolboy slang (boarding schoolboy slang perhaps, since your unposh correspondent does not know it) 'a pile of pants' meaning 'smelly and useless'. Only boys at boarding school would collect a pile of pants. We dayschool chaps would have given them to our mothers to wash long before they became a pile. There is also an expression 'to pants someone' meaning to strip them to their underpants, thus humiliating them. A bit of pantsing occurs in John Betjeman's versde autobiography 'Summoned by Bells' though Betj doesn't use the word.

[Jerome Betts]

Agree about Sarkozy pronunciation, John. Can't remember anyone saying SarKOzy actually. .

Fashiony-pashiony,
Catherine Middleton
Viewed the front pages with
Sisterly pain.

"Some other person, more
Uncallypygian,
Should have been chosen to
Carry my train.”

Frankery-pankery,
Nicholas Sarkozy,
Rather short President,
Why such a glare?

Answer - D. Cameron
Undiplomatically
Sticking his nose in the
Euro affair.

Mitery-whitery,
Archbishop Williams
Scratches his head when he
Visits St Paul’s.

There, with the occupants'
Immovability,
He can do little if
Dialogue stalls.

[Ann Drysdale]

Alas, John - I cannot shed light on your pants. I only know that it is so.

However, the dividing ocean and its shibboleths put me in mind of a favourite poem:

Then I said: “O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon’s haberdasher,
Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,
Thou callest trousers ‘pants,’ whereas I call them ‘trousers,’
Therefore thou art in hell-fire, and may the Lord pity thee!”
O God, O Montreal!

[John Whitworth]

I forgot the Higgledy-Piggledy stuff. I will amend.

[FOsen]

Vodey-o-dodey-o
Leo DiCaprio
Plays Edgar Hoover, though
Doesn’t impress.

Those who knew Edgar know,
Coadunatio,
Hoover would never show
Pearls with that dress.

[Ann Drysdale]

Frank! I was really enjoying that cup of tea until you diverted it down my nose! The extra rhymes are like icing on a "Frank Fancy" - brilliant!

[Bill Greenwell]

"I have to insist on NIKolas SARkozy, but I reckon, the name being French, that is a better approximation than Brit sar-KOzy, and I've got my wife's agreement o that - A level French to my O level."

(says he, having sent one on NS) Worse, I think it's NicolAH SarkoZEE ...

[Jayne Osborn]

That's the problem with this challenge:
finding a six-syllable name with the em-phar-sis on the right syll-ar-bles!

[Bill Greenwell]

Not sure if it's in Owl In A Sack, and can't recall the first line, but one old NS entry went something like

Tidderly-todderly
Vladimir Nabokov -
Wait hasn't somebody
Made a mistake?

Out of such errors Vlad-
imir Nabokov did
sesquipedalian
paragraphs make.

(The original rules allowed line 6 OR 7 to be the single word)