Talk:Long underwear

2005 comment
I added the Stanfield piece, based on a book of Maritime inventors. Also, wat's up with the freaky Dylan refs in stub edit portion? Trekphiler 04:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Inventor
Count Rumford seems to be generally regarded as "the" inventor of thermal underwear (Prof. Michael Fowler of the University of Virginia, lecture notes:, and Have I Got News For You, first transmitted 16 December 2005, BBC1). Does anyone know the specifics?

Evil Indians - Dubious
Marked the section w/ Pocohontas as dubious. Is that just vandalism? Zanter (talk) 16:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Long-Handle(d) Underwear
Where does the variant "long-handled" underwear come from? Where are the handles to which it refers?

Europe / US differences
I'm not sure about the unreferenced claims about fabric composition in Europe and the US. There may be some truth in the claims for specialist high end products, but thermal underwear sold in UK chainstores and supermarkets is exclusively made from synthetic fabric, mainly polyester. I haven't seen underwear made from wool for over 40 years. --Ef80 (talk) 13:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC) Better quality, but still relatively cheap, thermal underwear in outdoor and climbing shops is often Merino wool in the UK.

Etymology of "long johns"
In French, long legs are "longues jambes" which is easily mispronounced by native English speakers as long johns. Seeing that this type of underwear has long legs it may be that this is the origin of the term. -- SunDog |  Talk 23:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting. We used to call them long-johns and bunyans growing up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.10.126.240 (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * the term's origin is ultimately unknown
 * If longjohns do not originate with Sullivan; how about the other John in the reference, the manufacturer John Smedley? Nuttyskin (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Separate words for upper and lower parts
There should be a separate word for the lower and upper parts of this underwear in the English language. Other languages have them. E.g. in Russian the lower part is called "undertrousers". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:700C:EB00:C9B8:CDB0:6ECE:3FA7 (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * There already are, at least in British English. The bottom half are 'long johns' and the top half are 'long sleeved vests'. There's no such term as 'long underwear' in general use. It is normal to wear long johns and a short sleeved vest when outdoors on a typical UK winter day. (Yes, I know Americans call waistcoats 'vests', and call vests 'singlets' or whatever). This article is a mess. --Ef80 (talk)


 * Although, in British English, the leg garment is referred to as long johns (or longjohns), and the upper garment as long sleeved vests; wearing both together is typically referred to as wearing longjohns.
 * Nuttyskin (talk) 16:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)