Ah language . . . without you we’d be as to the beasts, ravening in the wilderness, red in tooth and claw. Well, that and opposable thumbs, as we know.

Just think of the word ‘pants’. Depending where you are in the world, this simple monosyllable can denote subtle but very significant things. In the US and Australia, it’s trousers. In the UK, it’s feminine underwear – and in the last couple of decades, a synonym for rubbishy, crappy, of a low qualitative standard. As in, “that U2 gig was pants.”

This last application makes the Aussie clothing store chain General Pants sound pretty iffy to me – but that’s my cultural conditioning speaking and no reflection on the quality of the merchandise.

These (below) are my pants – my working strides, for when messy activities are required in the home or garden. They started life as pretty respectable semi-casual flat-fronted chino-style trousers, required for those tricky occasions in the office known as ‘casual Friday’.

Life was so much easier in the old days: you’d wear suit and tie to the office, and jeans or shorts plus t-shirt in the home. Then came the day that someone (who knows who?) decreed that on a Friday – assuming no client meetings were scheduled – we could all let go and express our inner hippie by wearing ‘office casual’ attire.

This really put the cat among the pigeons, and in more ways than one. In fact, the bigger issue was how to define this new variety of garb. The HR department at the global financial institution where I slaved at the time was compelled to issue guidance on what to wear.

Among the key pointers were that pants must have no rivets, as these are one of the defining characteristics of jeans; that shirts must have collars, as this would preclude t-shirts; that there should be no logos, unless of course it was a modest and exclusive, like that of Lacoste or similar; and that shoes should be both enclosed (no sandals) and also hard-soled (no trainers). And that’s just for the men.

For women, there were various strictures regarding hem lengths, bare shoulders and midriffs – something us chaps didn’t really go in for much in our attire – during the day at least.

But even worse, some spartan individuals, such as yours truly, possessed nothing in the genre of ‘office casual’. For us it was about finding gear that wasn’t too sloppy or too smart. It meant, in fact, obtaining a whole new category that trod the line between the existing two.

Thus were we familiarised with such new concepts as polo shirts and chinos – quite a shock to the system, I can tell you. And being an investment bank, it was immediately clear that many Friday fashion choices were selected on premium pricing alone and not aesthetics or style – and that they cost considerably more than a quality off-the-shelf suit.

So, long story short, the pants in the picture were an attempt to find a casual-Friday-friendly pair that wouldn’t trigger red flags from HR. They served in this capacity quite nobly for a good five years, giving sterling service on Mondays to Thursdays as well (though not consecutively) in the freewheeling sartorial carnival that is freelance work.

But all good things must come to an end, and, finding ourselves in Corner Cottage, it was clear that messy work requires hardy but ultimately disposable clothing, and so the pants were recruited to a new role.

So, from striding the marbled halls of mammon to knee-deep in weeds, the dramatic rise and fall of my blue canvas pants. If you’ll permit a spot of hyperbole, the parabola of their career echoes that of their wearer; they are the outward manifestation of an inward transformation. If it’s true that clothes maketh the man, these are an outward indication that this man has undergone a lifestyle makeover since socially isolating in Braidwood.