His suit was well worn and fitted only where it touched.

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VictorB
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#1

Сообщение VictorB »

Further goes quite a detailed description of a character appearing in Peter May's The Man with no Face, where the underlined part of the italicized sentence is not quite clear to me.
The door opened and a lean man in a baggy brown suit stepped briskly into the office carrying a slim, beige folder. The crown of his head was bald and shiny, but dark, wiry hair grew in bushy abundance round it, and he wore round-rimmed tortoiseshell spectacles over a long, thin nose with flaring nostrils. He would be in his fifties, Bannerman guessed, with a grey, deeply creased face from which peered two small, very dark eyes behind the spectacles. His suit was well worn and fitted only where it touched. His waistcoat was open, a thin brown tie hanging from an open-necked white shirt. He carried about him an air of
age and defeat, like a schoolmaster nearing the end of his career, reeking of chalk dust and blackboards and thankless years.
The question is, what small detail might it add to the man's outfit having the signs of extensive use/wear? How could the phrase "and fitted only where it touched" be paraphrased in English, or (optionally) translated into Russian)?
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#2

Сообщение Easy-Breezy English »

VictorB, it just means that his suit didn't fit very well. Like, it was probably baggy and shapeless.
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#3

Сообщение VictorB »

Easy-Breezy English пишет: 01 июл 2021, 16:06 it just means that his suit didn't fit very well.
Thanks a million, Eazy-Breazy, I've already found that out and asked the mods to delete this post of mine, which by no means makes my gratitude to you an iota less profound:)
Последний раз редактировалось VictorB 01 июл 2021, 16:30, всего редактировалось 1 раз.
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#4

Сообщение Easy-Breezy English »

VictorB, no problem, it might still be useful to someone else.
Did you happen to look up the etymology? I've no clue why it means that. It only fits in those places that it touches?
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#5

Сообщение VictorB »

Easy-Breezy English,
Easy-Breezy English пишет: 01 июл 2021, 16:25 Did you happen to look up the etymology?
The only dictionary reference to it that I could find is this:
It fits where it touches jocularly applied to loose, very ill-fitting clothes. Late 19th-20th centuries. For trousers, the plural form they fit where they touch is used; since around 1960 this phrase has also been applied to suggestively tight trousers.
The source:
Изображение
Also, https://studfile.net/preview/393904/page:6/ (in the book, it's on page 49)
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#6

Сообщение Yety »

VictorB пишет: 01 июл 2021, 16:52 since around 1960 this phrase has also been applied to suggestively tight...
... clothes, especially trousers." (Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases).

The variant without 'only' seems more likely to be interpreted in that way. There's quite a little evidence on the net suggesting that quite a few people tend to perceive that expression in accord with this latter 'Swinging-Sixties' definition in Eric Partridge's dictionary (and contrary to the original meaning fit where they touch, fits where it touches, fits him like a duck's ass).

Found a quote from a book where it unequivocally means 'suggestively tight' rather than 'ill-fitting':
The Barcza Gambit - Page 151
Roger Cave · 2007
He was stopped from turning [the television] over [to a new channel] by a pretty, young reporter on the television. She was tall, blonde, tanned and was wearing a royal blue suit that fit where it touched, and boy, did it touch all the right places! “Christ," Fincham thought, "I've been away from civilization too long," as he watched the reporter.
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