Ask Mike: The case of the mysterious birthday suit
Hey Guys,
For whatever reason, the phrase “birthday suit” never fails to amuse me. It’s just a perfectly silly expression. Wanting to pay my respects to the genius who coined the phrase, I set out to figure out all I could on the originator. The task proved tougher than I thought.
My initial search on “birthday suit origin” yielded mixed results. Many of the sites ignored my plea for information on the origin and instead explained that wearing a birthday suit is the same as being naked. Thanks guys, but I knew that already.
After a few fruitless clicks, I stumbled upon a site that listed a somewhat cryptic quote by William Makepeace Thackeray. According to the site, Thackery included a line in a story that mentions a “birthday suit of velvet.” Intriguing, but I wasn’t sure that line held the same meaning as its modern day definition.
Pressing on, I stumbled upon a page from Dictionary.com. The site explains that “in 18th-century Britain this term originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king’s birthday. Later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, alluding to the condition of a newborn baby.” Jackpot. Well, kind of. I still had no idea why an expression that once referred to clothes worn to impress a royal became a synonym for nudity. But it sure sounded like a good story, so I trudged on.
It is there, beloved reader, that I hit a brick wall. I searched high and low, but I could not find an acceptable answer. After scouring the Web I still don’t know who coined the phrase. I’m hoping you guys can come to my rescue. Got any links that explain who came up with the expression? If so, please leave me a note below. If not, I’ll just have to file the case of the birthday suit under “U” for unsolved.
Thanks for reading,
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That reminds me of a story I heard when I was a kid. It was about a royal person who was a real butt head, and as a joke, the people who made his clothes convinced him that they were going to make him a wonderful new robe out of invisible material. They promised him that he was the only one who couldn’t see it, and that everyone else thought it was beautiful…so he paraded around naked!!
hmmm looks like you should ask that person on youtube
hotforwords
Well … English is laden with such wacky mysteries. I wish I could help you!
Birthday suit originated during my entire childhood I believe it came from Yiddish. It in it’s entirety means unsuitable for suits as perks understating is what!!!
I thought that statement came as a result of the
story “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.
Check that one out and see if it’s a good fit.
I think it is self explanatory,the suit you were born in,what gets me is the expression “ass-backwards”in a negative sense…I believe “ass-frontwards”conveys a much more horrific description of chaos. Also, my mother often told me I “talk like someone with a paper asshole”, an idiom I have never been able to fathom.(Some sort of self cleaning function?)
We could ask Hot For Words…
Isn’t that kinda like the story of the emporer’s new suit?
The reason you couldn’t find any results was because you used Yahoo! and not Google
My, what an interesting subject
it’s a guess but i think birthday suit for a king and being naked might be associated because of the old tale where the king buys an invisible suit that “only people who are good at their proffesion can see” and he walks out to the crowd naked, i don’t remember if it was on his birthday tho
*GASP*
Nobody on here knows????
whoa….
Hi Mike! I don’t have any links, but I’ve always been told it’s because your first birthday is “in the nude”, therefore your birthday suit is your bare skin!
I think I’m going to go with that until you find an answer! But good luck
* Oops grammar mistake! Sorry guys :\
“because your first birthday is in-the-nude; therefore, your birthday suit is your bare skin!”
There we go… all better
Well, IDK if it has anything to do with this, but the story of the king’s birthday put me in mind of a story I heard a long time ago titled “The Emporer’s New Clothes”, a story in which a king/emporer get duped into being clothed in “invisible” clothing for his birthday and is assured they are only of the finest quality. As it turned out, the guy tricked him out of his money and he truly was naked, parading through the town in his new “birthday suit”.
Hey! good research
I always thought the phrase referred to the clothes you were wearing on the day of your birth; i.e., birthday suit.
good text =]
perhaps it has something to do with the Emperor’s New Clothes?
I always thought it meant the suit you were wearing on your first birthday(the day you were born)
Hey! After reading your article, I think I caught the “Birthday Suit” bug.
I’ve tried researching on the topic but I didn’t find anything helpful that would explain the origin of the phrase.
The earliest article I encountered which mentioned the phrase is in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1837): “If I may give vent to a little allowable jocosity on so hilarious an occasion, I should say that he had put on his birthday suit, in order to appear with …”
In Miscellanies by William Makepeace Thackeray (1877)
“In his ” Temple Beau,” the beau is dunned ” for a birthday suit of velvet, .” Be sure that Mr. Harry Fielding was dunned too… the verge of the Court…
Thesaurus of English words and phrases by Peter Mark Roget (1883)
“… poncho, cardinal, pelerine. in -a stete of nature, – nature’s garb, – buff, – native buff, – birthday suit ; in puns naturalibus ; with nothing on, …”
As you can see, I think I’ve also entered the same site you’ve been in to. Nothing really mentioned how the phrase came about… Sorry if I can’t help.
That makes sense, interesting it is so simple but a lot of people don’t know what it means,hmm!
I don’t know about its first use, but I would venture to guess the meaning is taken from it being the same “suit” you wore on the day of your birth, which is to say, none.
Hi Mike,
Have you read the story of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’? First Released in by Dutch author Hans Christian Anderson in 1837, once it made it’s way to Britian it became quite popular and I believe that is why the phrase changed. Google it.
Ali
And this was a “perfectly silly” diversion.
So how come this dissertation into “naked truth” didn’t get a Violation from the Yahoo! CC Police?
Typical. AND Unfair…
Simple. It’s the ‘suit’ worn on the day of one’s birth.
Some corroborating site references:http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/suit+book
*in one’s birthday suit
Fig. naked; nude. (In the “clothes” in which one was born. *Typically: be ~; get [into] ~.) I’ve heard that John sleeps in his birthday suit. We used to go down to the river and swim in our birthday suits.
http://cn.wordmind.com/ecmaster-cgi/Csearch.cgi?kwd=suit&...
{adj: mother-naked, naked as the day one was born, naked as the day you were born, in one’s birthday suit, in your birthday suit} as naked as at birth
Word origins are far more complicated – and more unpredictable – than most non-lexicographers realise. So much so that the BBC has made a fascinating series of programmes about how words are researched and defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.
If Dictionary Com has a reference to Thackeray using ‘birthday suit’ in a sense different from the modern one, that will give you a date to start searching from. (Thackeray must have been unaware of the modern meaning).
Since I watched the Balderdash and Piffle episode on the fascinating origins of the word ‘cool’ I no longer trust the fairy stories I find on the internet.
There should have been a link in my post above:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/wordhunt/
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For us to be saying it, we may have heard it on a classic tv series or from a motion picture.
This term is from 18-century Britian “originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king’s birthday. later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, i.e, new born baby.
I just thought of something. Maybe it came from “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
i think the ‘Y’ (WHY) on your shirt says it all.
I searched on Google just now and got a result immediatley:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Birthday_Suit
I`m German and it has always been that on one`s birthday one wold wear a new suit.Now you know the answer.
Here is a great site, for the answer. Unfortunatelly, If you really want to know the answer I think you have to make an account and pay a fee: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface?content=a905018169&rt=0&format=pdf
or go to wikipedia or wiki answers and type in his name: Matthaeo Realdo Colombo
and read the info on him.
That is a very interesting story! Thank you for researching it!
=Nikki=
Running out of blog ideas? Isn’t this a re-run? I’m thinking I’ve already seen the “birthday suit” blog here before. I know I’ve seen it somewhere. C’monnnnn.
Lacie, that is the classic story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”!
It says it right there BIRTH DAY SUIT, what you were wearing when you were born!!!!!
BIRTHDAY SUIT…the suit you were wearing the day of your birth. um duh.
uncyclopedia.com had this to say (btw, it’s “content-free”):
The birthday suit originated in the queendom of Peqia. It is so-called because, in birthday celebrations there, the person whose birthday is being celebrated wears the suit. Days out, nights out, house parties, public shows held for the royals and other famous people, you name it, you can always tell a birthday celebration and whose birthday it is a celebration of by the presence of somebody dressed up in a birthday suit.
This millennia-old tradition holds as strongly as ever to this day. Sometimes people who happen by coincidence to have the same birthday, be they fraternal twins, conjoined twins, or completely unrelated strangers, would go out in matching birthday suits and celebrate together.
well it is the “suit” you wear on the day you’re born, but maybe if you consider that whole wearing the suit thing to the king’s birthday celebration and also “The Emperor’s New Clothes” which is the one with the invisible material. Possible?
Omfg. Half the commenters here CLEARLY lack reading comprehension skills. Mike knows what a birthday suit is. He knows it means being naked, like the day you were born. Stop pointing that out, EVERYONE knows it.
What he wants to find out is WHO COINED THE PHRASE.
In 18th-century Britain this term originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king’s birthday. Later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, alluding to the condition of a newborn baby.
maybe it wasnt made up by someone famous, maybe it was made up by some kids in an elementary school or something, and there is no record of it, but the word is still used. is that possible?
I think its a cultural thing, like some people don’t like to say toilet paper they call it bathroom tissue; some people prefer not to use the word naked instead ‘they were swimming in their birthday suit’.
It’s a description of the event without using low class terminology.
HI DUDE WITH THE SAME 1st NAME AS ME!
anyway, I thought it was because of that story “the emporers new clothes”! If you dont know it… LOOK IT UP!
naww, just kidding, here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor‘s_New_Clothes
[...] was sufficiently amused by the term “birthday suit” to go hunting down its origins, but he is not entirely persuaded by what he found: I stumbled upon a page from Dictionary.com. [...]
Origin
The birthday suit originated in the queendom of Peqia. It is so-called because, in birthday celebrations there, the person whose birthday is being celebrated wears the suit. Days out, nights out, house parties, public shows held for the royals and other famous people, you name it, you can always tell a birthday celebration and whose birthday it is a celebration of by the presence of somebody dressed up in a birthday suit.
This millennia-old tradition holds as strongly as ever to this day. Sometimes people who happen by coincidence to have the same birthday, be they fraternal twins, conjoined twins, or completely unrelated strangers, would go out in matching birthday suits and celebrate together.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Birthday_Suit
In the tale of The Emperors New Clothes, he is fooled by his tailors into thinking they have made him extravagant clothing out of nothing at all. The Emperor is convinced that he is wearing the most stunning clothing when in fact is is naked. He presents himself to his court bare naked thinking he is fashionably clothed. That could be the link between a Kings birthday clothes to bare naked skin.
Well, you are naked on your first birthday.
good stuff.
Okay, you aren’t really serious about this question are you? All it takes is a little bit of common sense to figure it out. “Birth-day suit”…um what you are wearing at birth….the suit you are wearing at birth, get it? BIRTH day suit….duh….this did not take a genius or a web search to figure this one out Einstein.
why would you be naked on your first birthday , thats when you are one year old , you are naked on the day you are born which is different
You are asking a question that I thought often about. Not specifically where did the expression “birthday suit” come from but doing a type of dictionary of all literary expressions. Where did they originate and who thought them up? Phrases like “Its raining cats and dogs”, “Godspeed”, “holy Mackerel!!!” etc. etc. Now if you can write a book about where all these phrases or expressions come from that would be a literary achievement. Not to mention damn fascinating worthy of a Pulitzer if you ask me… If you’re interested in doing a collaboration on such a book let me know. I am J.V. on yahoo answers and I am an investigative perfectionsit with a 61% positive feedback rating. Who would be a better co-author for such a book than me?
It’s because, on the day ALL humanity was born, i.e., the day God created us, we were naked, and therefore, in our birthday suits.
I’d always kinda thought that it was from the story of ” The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Of course that doesn’t really answer the question of who coined it. But chances are it was just some random guy who’s probably dead and absolutely unknown.
I think that the change from the old meaning (what one wears on the King’s birthday) to the present meaning (state of nakedness), originated from Hans Christian Anderson’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” I think a couple other people found the same connection, but the time line definitely fits because the story was written in 1853, which was about the same time that the meaning changed.
EDIT: The story was published in 1837. The King was scammed by people who were making him robes made of the finest silk but ihe was actually wearing nothing.
nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes#Plot_summaryo
FWIW, the “Online Etymology Dictionary” says the source is at least as old as the 1730′s, but fails to elaborate (dontcha just hate that?). I’ve often wondered if the “suit” part didn’t refer to the blanket or cloak or other article of clothing with which most infants are covered, probably since caveman days, so “suit” was more literal than today’s expression is, but, that’s not unusual (e.g., “farewell” (granted, hardly used today), was originally, “fare-thee-well” or “may you fare well until next we meet”, etc). Or, if you don’t mind a bit of comical nonsense, perhaps when the father-to-be saw that the baby clearly was not his, he immediately filed for divorce, which, over time, became “birthday (law)suit” (I said it was a “bit”, right?).
I know who it was. Obviously, it was Chuck Norris.
I don’t think it will ever be found who originated that term, rather, I believe it just sort of stuck after people realized that on the day of your birth, you are in fact naked. Someone probably said it, as someone also coined different slang terms and they became quite common. I don’t think there is any one person looking to take credit for it though.
Ah dear, it’s interesting how no one reads the previous comments, isn’t it? We all thought of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ when we read this blog. Unfortunately, this leads us nowhere. Thank you still to the 10s of people who have already intimated to us this revelation, though… Sigh.
Anyway – according to the seemingly reliable Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=birth the origin of the term ‘birthday suit’ is unknown, but is “first attested 1730s, but [is] probably much older.”
Sorry, that was meant to read “first attested [to in the] 1730s, but [is] probably much older.”
Furthermore, as much as I love Uncyclopedia – it is a joke website. It is not a real reference site – nor does it attempt to be.
One of my History teachesr told me this story. I do not know if this is true, but he said that both the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, and the term “birthday suit” came from the same event.
As you said the term “birthday suit” was what was worn on the king’s birthday. In the early 1500s the king of Spain ordered a shipment of clothes from France for his birthday, to look amazing in rich linens. However, as his new clothes were being transported to Spain, the carriage was attacked, and thieves took his new clothes. When the carriage arrived, it was broken and empty. The king refused to where anything until a new set of clothes was made, but it took longer than a day to make his new set of clothes, so he just sat in his room all day.
Well, the hilarious upshot of the story (and perhaps its secret meaning) is that a CHILD comments, as he passes by, “But he’s not wearing any clothes!” As everyone else—-to show how smart and ‘with it’ that they are—-is murmuring how good the emperor is in his new clothes. It reminds me of Obama.
We admire his persistence, instead of being horrified at his demolishment.
Try a search using the following parameters:
etymology birthday suit
I think you’ll have more progress.
Hey Howdy! ;P
You like that name? In Wicca nudity is called …..Skyclad!
YAY!
the term b-day suit is becuase when you are born you are naked, so they call it a birthday suit becuase you are naked
As an old timer I can only say when I first heard it. It was in the 5th grade at Rio Linda Elementry school in CA. That would have been 1958 and when it was explained to me I thought the boy who said it was horrible. By today’s standards I am sure it would be nothing!
Hahaha what a hypocrite was I! I just read the comment one or two before mine, only to see that someone had already cited the Online Etymology Dictionary. How hilarious – and there I was getting cross about people not reading prior comments! I thought I had read them all, but not well enough, clearly! Apologies! Perhaps we ALL need to try to read better (myself included!)
I’m not sure, but I think it was created because when your born (your birthday) you aren’t wearing any clothes hence the term “birthday suit”" but im sure you knew that.
It is from a children’s story:
Once upon a time there was a very proud king. He wanted a very special outfit for his birthday, so he hired two men to make him one. They really didn’t know how to make clothing, but they really needed the money. They told him that they made it out of a special fabric that only wise people can see/ if you are stupid it is invisible. The king didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t see it, so he wore the outfit. Everyone he passed said nothing about his nakedness because they didn’t want to be thought of as stupid. Finally, a little boy yelled out “You’re naked!” And everybody else finally admitted that he was. He was so humiliated that he ran off, still in his ‘birthday suit’ and was never seen again. Moral of the story: don’t be too proud.
Mine is a very “semantical” comment. In my mind, as far as origin of the phrase is concerned, it is “elementary, my dear Watson”. In my mind, as far back as the eons go, 1800′s, 1700′s, 1600′s, 1500′s…ad infinitum…the word combination meaning is what carries the day (rather than the phrase). “Birthday Suit” is quite explanatory (what you wore on the day of your birth). Why would accurate word discriptors need to be “coined”?
I thought it referred to when you’re actually born. Cause babies are born naked! And wearing your birthday suit means being naked…Get it?
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog about your ‘research’!
Certainly, there are many phrases that have either a specific author or were associated with a idiocyncrisy in history. (I simply don’t believe this one was one of them.)
fashion shopping,watches, clothes, shoes
The term “Birthday Suit” makes perfect sence to me. As far as the origin I am not sure I have much concern. however there is a term that also refers to naked or nude that has never made sence “Skinny Dipping” if anyone can explain that one I am listening or should I say reading.
hi
actualy I do see a connection there. for me everytime I’ve heard the term used it wasn’t just refering to someone beeing naked. as that could imply they where beeing naked on purpose but beeing caught naked in a situation one wouln’t ever think of beeing naked in normally. I think the connection between a formal even’t like the kings birthday and that story about the king who strutted arround naked thinking he was wearing clothing. because he didn’t think it was just him that could see them but anyone who was “good enough” as he wouln’t of strutted arround town if he thought he’d be nude to every one else. so he thought this is a way he could figure out who was worth keeping and who wasn’t. but in the end the joke was on him. what I also think made the saying more well known was cartoons. I think most of us for a good part of our childhood would make shure to watch as many of these as we could. and I do remember at least a few times whever varios shows would get a char into some situation where they do get caught nude unexpectaly usally a susprise party of some sort. then they make a Toga out of their happy birthday banner insted of running off to get dressed. I think that also helped all of us to learn the phrase birthday suit.
Because you are *BORN* NAKED in your birthday suit! (birth…day)
This is for bob: You only have one birthday – the day you were born. It does not mean your “birthday when you are one year old”. All others are anniversaries of your birthday. Think of it in terms of a wedding day. People celebrate the Anniversary date of their wedding
I thought it was called your “birthday suit” because it is the “suit” you wear on your birthday (day of your birth).
Obviously, you don’t come out clothed from your mother’s belly.
But that’s just a guess, and someone probably already said that. =)
I’m pretty sure it comes from that tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. The Emperor was a real a-hole so the tailors convinced him that the birthday suit they made for him was so absolutely beautiful to everyone else, but he couldn’t see it. So they got him to parade around naked and made a fool of.
This sounds like a question u thought of after smoking a green leafy substance. LOL
Thank you for using correct American punctuation!
First of all, don’t use Unencylopedia for your research, folks. It’s a deliberate spoof of an encyclopedia. Most of its articles are obvious fiction, but that’s no guarantee someone won’t enjoy crafting a credible but entirely false article as the height of spoofery.
Second, most user-contributed websites cannot be *relied* upon for factual information. Even Wikipedia, which prides itself on creating useful material out of chaos, frequently fails to cite sources which would assure a serious researcher that they have valid information. Douglas Harper’s Online Etymology Dictionary is quite impressive, but again it doesn’t list specific sources for each term, so one cannot readily check them. (To be fair, his general sources are impeccable, but I’ve found problems and omissions even the most prominent print dictionaries.) In general, a statement is only as reliable as its source, and all too often, one cannot find a definitive source for word-origin claims.
Finally, I suspect many of the citations for the phrase actually mean something entirely different, namely, a tailored outfit one trotted out for a special occasion, so-called presumably because it was given as a gift on one’s birthday. I’ve already found a few 18th-century books that use the term without any apparent attempt at irony or double-entendre. I’m going to check a few things out over the next half-day and see if I can get some more useful info.
I hope that you know that the term “birthday suit” is another reference for how you came into the world, butt stark naked! If you were embarrassed to be seen in that kind of a suit, that would be the reason.
Found it. Do I get a cookie?
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Birthday_Suit
I always liked the exspession myself and I too think of the story ” The Emperors New Clothes” . Its a childrens story but I think by the comments that there are alot of you in my age group reading this because kids today have never heard it lol.
I want to know if im ever going to be happy an get a good paying job to support me and my family cause right now it is hard times
its all dumb
Ludacris in the song Yeah! once said “and I’ll get them in they birthday suits!!!!!” before then no one ever used the word birthday suit.
Read klsdhfklashdfklasghdfjasghdfhksgadfjasg’s good answer if you can’t understand, Michael.
When a child is born they come out of their mother’s womb naked….. and that’s why they call it a birthday suit. It’s just another thing that some one made up and every one started to say. Their is no real definition for it. Don’t stress you self out over something that simple.
hey Mike…
I’m portuguese and we also have a similar expression, it’s “vestido como vieste ao mundo” that means ‘dressed how you came to the world’…
doesn’t need so much research for the meaning or where that came from… but I guess that it was a common expression… used by the not so wealthy people and just someone remembered to had a little beauty to the expression…
bye!
¡¡Hello Mike,
my favorite — ,Hans Christian Andersen, has a fairy tale “The naked King”…i was reading (in Russian)when i was a child and it´s all about….man´s EGO(¡¡That´s the Point!) so you know…
Ella
голый король – the naked king
голый король!
голый король!
голый король!
It’s not that hard people.
It’s the suit you wore when you were born (“your birth day”). I.e. Nothing.
Well, when we are born we come out naked right?
Duh people! Did you read what he wrote? He knows it means what you wore on your birthday(nothing)
He wants to know who first used that expression. Every expression has an origin, but he couldn’t find it for this one
Actually you had the answer yourself, right there at the beginning.
In the 18th century it was the done thing for courtiers to go to the king’s Birthday Levée in a new and lavish outfit (this was a time before dark suits, when men still wore coloured silks and brocades, trimmed with embroidery and gold). This outfit was called a “birthday suit”. It didn’t take long for some wit to notice that the outfit one wears on one’s own birth day is nothing at all, and use “in one’s birthday suit” jokily to mean “naked”.
The phrase has nothing at all to do with “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, because that was first published in 1837 and the phrase was already being used to mean “naked” in the 1750s.
The bulk of this thread is TRASH. Everyone knows what a “Birthday Suit” is and everyone has heard of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” THAT WASN”T THE QUESTION PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! The only question is “WHO COINED THE PHRASE” most don’t know and I surely don’t it’s a mystery to the internet! I applaud “MIKE” for posting the question? But in the end you have to ask yourself did he post it to get a response or to see how stupid people really are about not reading the question?