Going commando

1. Campus coinage and dictionary traces: the safest documentary claim

Written records and dictionaries trace the idiom to university slang in the 1970s (cited as early as 1974) and register its meaning as “not wearing underwear,” a usage captured in lexicons and online etymologies that treat the 1970s campus citation and later dictionary listings as the most secure documentary evidence ^[4][2][5].

2. Pop culture made the phrase mainstream: Friends and the 1996 spike

The sitcom Friends propelled the term into broad public notice when Joey used it in a 1996 episode, an appearance repeatedly cited in reporting as the moment the phrase gained currency in mainstream American English, a phenomenon contemporaneous coverage linked to the show’s cultural influence ^[1][5].

3. The military-origin theories: plausible, varied, but under-documented

Multiple authoritative and amateur sources advance military explanations — that commandos eschewed underpants to reduce chafing, manage moisture during jungle or amphibious operations, or avoid sanitary problems in the field — and these theories appear in reputable investigations and popular military lore, but the reporting shows these are hypotheses rather than documented etymological proofs ^[3][6][7].

4. Conflicting military narratives: WWII, Vietnam, and colorful folklore

Accounts differ on when and where the military practice, if any, began: some point to World War II amphibious or special-forces units who navigated wet environments and worried about chafing (a practical explanation offered by etymology blogs and The Art of Manliness), while others point to Vietnam-era U.S. commandos or to apocryphal battlefield tales that read more like folklore than recorded practice ^[3][6][7]. The reporting shows no single authoritative military document cited that uses the phrase contemporaneously in that era, which weakens a direct claim that commandos literally “went commando” as the origin.

5. How scholars and lexicographers treat uncertainty

Etymologists and lexicographers quoted in the sources emphasize uncertainty: some note the OED calls the origin “obscure,” others record early citations and flag the 1996 popularization without endorsing a definitive origin story, demonstrating that responsible lexical authorities prefer noting attestation dates and circulating theories rather than asserting an unproven wartime genesis ^[1][5][8].

6. Reading the evidence: most defensible conclusion and remaining gaps

The most defensible conclusion based on the reviewed reporting is a layered one: the idiom was in campus slang by the 1970s, was popularized broadly by 1996 via Friends, and has plausible but unproven military-origin stories that likely helped the metaphor gain emotional resonance — however, there is insufficient primary-source evidence linking the phrase directly to a documented wartime practice or to a single origin incident, so the military explanations remain plausible folklore rather than established fact ^[4][1][3].

7. Why the ambiguity persists and what to watch for in further research

Ambiguity persists because slang often travels orally and through subcultures before being written down, and because evocative military-origin narratives attract retellings that feel convincing but lack contemporaneous citations; future clarifying evidence would be an authenticated written use of the phrase in a military or civilian context predating the 1970s or a primary source explicitly using the term among servicemen — neither of which appears in the reviewed reporting ^[2][3].