Please someone answer this…
Why is it when you buy 'A' jean, it's considered a "PAIR"? or amI just not speaking the same language? :confused:Pants have evolved over the centuries. Originally, they were a pair of leggings laced to a diaper/codpiece contraption. Thus…a pair of pants.
Pants,among many other things, are made by combining two similar, but not identical, objects.
Therefore the combining of Right and Left parts of pants make a Pair.
Making pants with two right sides,or two left, would really be a fashion statement
EZ
How about a pair of glasses? A pair of tongs? A pair of scissors? A pair of headphones? A pair of dice and the real strange one: A pair of pajamas?
One is a “die”
I’ve never heard any one say “a pair of pajamas” or a “pair of headphones”.
A la Gallagher, why a pair of panties, but only one bra?
I say a pair of pajamas. It’s a set of headphones.
Here’s an illustration.
A pair of pyjamas is a pair of pyjama pants, isn’t it?
I’d guess that a pair of glasses is based on this. You’d start with one glass, and at some time someone had the bright idea of placing two glasses in the same frame.
It’s only one bra because, unlike pants, that garment has never consisted of two separate pieces of clothing. (At least, I’ve more than a passing interest in clothing history, and I’ve never seen anything that might fit that description.)
'Well, a ‘pair’ means two objects/elements which 'match each other. So you would hear about a carriage being drawn by a ‘pair of greys’ (two grey horses of similar height and build); you might hear people referred to as a ‘good-looking pair’; in card games a pair refers to two matching cards.
Originally you could have a single ‘eye-glass’ or monocle so a pair of glasses was to differentiate. Similarly you can have a single ear-piece and those who say a apir of headphones are again specifying one for each ear. (On preview I see you beat me to it hildea .)
This site (scroll down) tells you about scissors and WAG I imagine that tongs and tweezers are also pairs because at one stage they were two elements joined by a third - as here, that or they followed the pattern set by scissors.
Pyjamas ? Swimming trunks ? Knickers ? Shorts etc. It wouuld be logical to assume that they follow the pattern set by trousers which has been explained. (Or that they are used to clothe a pair of legs.)
Dice ? well you wouldn’t want to be playing with two dice of different sizes would you ? In card games you will also hear ‘a pair of Kings’ etc.
I have, in both cases; I think those are pretty much the standard terms in my part of the UK, anyway.
Thanks all. That makes sense, I guess. [When you speak English. 
We just call it ‘A’ pajama, or ‘A’ schaar - bril / scissors - glasses]
I also say “a pair of pajamas” and “a pair of headphones”, so it can’t be that unusual in the English-speaking world.
Cecil speaks.
Ah, hence the word “repair”. When an object was whole and functional, it was paired. Thus when it was broken in needed to be “re-paired”.
Alas, no. the ‘pair’ in repair actually comes from the latin parare - to arrange or make ready.