Knickers from New York

There is much more to knickers than meets the eye!

The name is an abbreviation of Diedrich Knickerbocker, a Dutch character in a popular play in New York towards the end of the C19 who wore the Dutch sleeved pantaloons which became known as Knickerbockers. The word entered common usage after this and has been abbreviated since to knickers, as indeed have the garments themselves.


Diedrich Knickerbocker

The character in the play was based on the first major work of the American writer Washington Irving “A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty”, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), a satire on self-important local history and contemporary politics. Prior to its publication, Irving started a hoax akin to today's viral marketing campaigns; he placed a series of missing person adverts in New York newspapers seeking information on Diedrich Knickerbocker, a crusty Dutch historian who had allegedly gone missing from his hotel in New York City.


Washington Irving

As part of the ruse, Irving placed a notice—allegedly from the hotel's proprietor—informing readers that if Mr. Knickerbocker failed to return to the hotel to pay his bill, he would publish a manuscript Knickerbocker had left behind.
Such was the influence of Washington Irving’s work that Knickerbocker became a slang term for inhabitants of Manhattan, hence the desert Knickerbocker Glory.



However when it comes to the story of knickers not everything goes down well. For in the US of A they are called panties, not knickers. There you have it, Diedrich Knickerbocker, a fictional prophet not without honour, save in his own country.



PS. We have not used this Blog to show knicker shots, if you want that sort of thing read the Daily Mail!


The Knickerbockers Baseball Team