Do you have smart pants?

Recently, while bantering in the kitchen with my husband, he took the opportunity to refer to me as a “smarty-pants.”  Admittedly, I deserved the appellation.  However, I had to wonder what quality of “pants” might make them “smart.”  “Smart pants” could mean pants that are fashionable, but I know his intention was not to compliment my attire.  I had to wonder, though, what qualities associate pants with smart-alecks?

I consulted my Chambers Slang Dictionary to find that “smarty-pants,” meaning  a term of light-hearted abuse, has a number of equally informal synonyms:  smarty-boots, smarty-drawers, and smarty-britches.  Chambers also links the nickname to Cyril Connolly, a Brit known mainly for his criticism but also for his essays.  I googled Cyril Connolly to find out what he might have done to have his name linked with this nickname.  He lived from 1903 to 1974.  He was quite the wit, evidently, and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Eric Blair, aka George Orwell.  Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford are specifically noted as having given their friend the nickname “smarty-pants” or “smarty-boots.”

These investigations, however, did not reveal how pants might be smart of how pants came to be associated with smart-alecks.  I can only imagine that “smarty-pants” might have something informally to do with the body part—the bohunkus—which fills the pants.  Think of the term “smart arse,” to use the British version.  After all, smarty-pantses can be quite cheeky!