Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Poll Results: What Should We Call 'Legwear'?

Nylon Gene Poll Results
The poll on the question of what generic term should be used to refer to men's legwear has closed, and the results are posted below. Thanks to the 304 readers who shared their opinion with us. Just in case you missed the original discussion on this, you can read it at the following link: http://www.nylongene.com/2009/05/what-should-we-call-mens-legwear.html.

Surprisingly, the top response by our readers was simply, "pantyhose". Presumably, this means referring to men's legwear as "men's pantyhose". This was preferred by 29% of respondents. "Legwear" was the Number Two response, with 20% of the voting, and "sheer/opaque tights" rounded out the top answers with 16% of the votes.

None of the other potential responses gathered even 10% of the votes. From this, we could infer that they have little potential for catching on as a generic 'catchword' for men's legwear. Of note is the fact that 'mantyhose' came in fifth place with only 5% of respondents preferring this oddball word. Ironically, off all the responses, it seems to be one of the most commonly used by media when writing about men's legwear. Although I don't really much care for the term, I too find myself using it with some regularity.

Does this mean that--like it or not--this made up word that came in fifth place in a poll on legwear terminology could 'get legs' and become the de facto name for men's hosiery? Who knows? Stranger things have happened in the annals of product marketing and trend development.


10 comments:

  1. Posting this reminder today is setting a bit of a tight deadline in my opinion ......

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  2. The poll was posted two weeks ago (I believe) and the days left to vote has been shown as a running countdown ever since. All I did was add a more visible reminder to prompt anyone who's not taken advantage yet to do so before time expires. It only takes a few seconds to vote. I don't see where it should present any difficulty for anyone.

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  3. My apologies, Steve, but *nylon gene* is setting a *tight* deadline - think of it in the British sense!

    Exit Dennis, stage left, pursued by Steve's N and K brandishing pitchforks ....

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  4. Boy, oh boy, Dennis!... I think we oughta chase after you with pitchforks for THAT one! Not really--ya got me on that one. har-dee-har-har

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  5. It looks like the winner is pantyhose. Oh, how I love a man in pantyhose. ;-)

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  6. Putting aside the transatlantic banter for a moment, is it not also true that there doesn't have to be one world-wide English term used? I could never imagine the US 'pantyhose' term ever catching on in the UK, because of its connotations and that there is an existing term which is not misunderstood. If the garment is really unisex, then there ought not to be any need for putting 'men's' in front of it, or in future it should be labelled men's pantyhose or women's pantyhose.
    I suppose what I am saying is that this is a case again where one size fits all doesn't apply!

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  7. I do suppose you are right, Dennis. It has occurred to me before also that there would probably not be 'one' singular term that would work everywhere and for everyone. When I'm writing or speaking, I tend to use several different terms, depending on a variety of factors. While I don't use the term 'pantyhose' THAT often in my writing, I will use it in situations where I want to grab attention, such as in headlines, etc. because it DOES tend to grab the reader's attention momentarily. Then, I'll most often use either 'tights', 'legwear' or 'hose/hosiery' in the body of the article.

    I don't use one single term within the body of the text primarily because I try to avoid redundancy, from a grammatical standpoint. It's just more interesting to the reader if you don't continually use the same word over and over again.

    As I said above in the post for this thread, I even use 'mantyhose' somewhat often, even though I don't much care for it. Not exactly sure why I would use a term I don't really like. I guess it may be because one thing it has going for it is that there's absolutely no ambiguity with the term 'mantyhose', AND recent media activity over the past year or so has made it a pretty well-recognized term.

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  8. Sorry I missed getting in on this, as I just found your blog. I'm suprised no one called them "Myhose" this could start out as a brand name then go on to cover all forms of hosiery for both men & women.

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  9. Only thing is... we're pretty set on the brand name, "ActivSkin".

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  10. I guess I'm old fashioned but I still like "nylons", because that's what they are made of. The term also covers all lengths of sheer hose, which pantyhose does not.

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