Bill Bryson’s ‘Notes from a Big Country’ contains the statistic that some percentage (I forget exactly what) of American women don’t know if they wear their knickers (panties/undies) over their tights (hose) or under it.
I’m quite absent minded, but can’t believe this, though I have to admit it seems just possible. Does anyone know this quote, and if there’s a cite, and if not if he made it up?
I’m a bit confused. Is this statistic supposed to be intepreted as “x% don’t know if they should…” or “x% don’t know if they currently are…”?
‘should’ would make a lot of sense, but I’m pretty sure it was ‘are’.
Got it! Good old google.
‘13% of women in the US cannot say whether they wear their tights under their knickers or over them’
That may just be because 13% of Americans don’t know what a “knicker” is, and are fuzzy on exactly what they meant by “tights.”
Possibly. The ignorance would seem to shifted to the pollsters in that case. I’d assumed that if there was a poll it would have been phrased for americans, and when Bryson wrote the article he translated (the book is a collection of articles, I think for a british newspaper)
Would this be better in another forum? I guessed Bryson fans would be here if anywhere and might happen to know, before I ask anyone else.