Talk:look down someone's shirt

RFD discussion: January–March 2021
"(idiomatic, slang, mildly vulgar) To look at a girl's breasts. Stop looking down her shirt!" My problems with this entry are:


 * The definition says nothing about shirts, and yet surely looking at a naked girl's breasts (or looking at them up the shirt, from below) is not "looking down a shirt".
 * I don't see how the term is remotely slang or vulgar, even if the habit might be creepy.
 * Isn't it basically overelaboration of a sum-of-part phrase? You could look down a male baby's shirt to try to find the food he spat down there. That's still looking down someone's shirt.

Equinox ◑ 13:50, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as SoP. If kept, then change "breasts" to "cleavage". SemperBlotto (talk) 13:54, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would use this when there is visible cleavage or a loose neck. I would not use it to describe staring at well-covered breasts or when the angle does not allow taking advantage of what exposure the clothes offer.  I would use it when a woman is bending over and the shirt falls away from her chest; the line of sight is horizontal relative to the earth but down relative to the her normal orientation.  Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:08, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't wanna sound old-fashioned, but isn't the female equivalent a blouse; look down someone's blouse? Shirts always strike me as being typically male, even if everything's mostly unisex nowadays. --Robbie SWE (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete, SOP. Also, women aren't the only people this happens to: as a gay man, I have looked down guys' shirts to see their chest hair, while they were bending forward and the shirt fell away from the chest. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ugh. 2A00:23C8:A0C:8C01:6040:3980:282:2D1 10:36, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please dear anon, do us all a favour and keep your stupid comments on your Facebook wall and stop posting them here. --Robbie SWE (talk) 13:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ignore the IP, tell us more! Ultimateria (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete, if kept, then change the wording so it becomes gender-neutral. --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Imetsia (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. If kept, fix the definition: at a minimum it requires a shirt, as Equinox says! (If someone is in a dress, it's "looking down someone's dress"; ditto "top", "blouse", "tank top", and I can even find uses of "looking down her robe", "T-shirt", and "sweater", which does suggest this isn't idiomatic.) Like Vox and Mahagaja, I've seen it used to refer to looking in a horizontal direction that is "down" relative to a bending-over person's normal orientation, but it can also refer to looking literally down, like if someone walks up to (behind) a seated woman and looks down her shirt (where it has a neckline that makes cleavage visible). I'm surprised by how few Google Books hits I find for "look(|s|ed|ing) down his shirt", but I do think the term is not restricted to women. Indeed, I dimly recall an op-ed by someone who worked at a charity who said people would look down their shirt trying to figure out what gender they were (IIRC if was because it wasn't common for cis women to head that kind of charity). - -sche (discuss) 07:50, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Given the number of variations, delete. Some of those sound wrong to me, but I have heard at last dress and blouse.  (Interesting to note that the opposite direction has given the language, which I would accept when the skirt is really a dress, but I have never heard of downshirting as a thing.)  Vox Sciurorum (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * It's . Equinox ◑ 13:29, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Which we only list as an adjective, but is also used as a verb:, , . --Lambiam 09:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the search te-- I mean, correction. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:30, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep &mdash; Dentonius 08:07, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Ultimateria (talk) 20:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, an exceptionally worthless entry. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  10:06, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * RFD-deleted. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 08:24, 7 March 2021 (UTC)