Barely comprehensible
Mike was sufficiently amused by the term “birthday suit” to go hunting down its origins, but he is not entirely persuaded by what he found:
I stumbled upon a page from Dictionary.com. The site explains that “in 18th-century Britain this term originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king’s birthday. Later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, alluding to the condition of a newborn baby.” Jackpot. Well, kind of. I still had no idea why an expression that once referred to clothes worn to impress a royal became a synonym for nudity.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the Emperor’s new clothes.
McGehee »
24 June 2009 · 11:11 pm
A week later I come back through and now that title has me hearing Robert Palmer.
“It used to make sense to me,
But now I find it…”