Why is “Hose” singular in German?

In English, pants and trousers are grammatically plural — “my pants are.” German sees one garment: die Hose ist. You buy eine Hose, wear it in the singular, and only say Hosen when several are actually in the closet. The clip’s clothing five — T-Shirt, Hose, Kleid, Mantel, Socken — hides this trap in plain sight.

The same singular logic applies to die Brille (glasses) and die Schere (scissors): the things English insists come “in pairs” are single objects in German. So “Where are my glasses?” becomes Wo ist meine Brille? — singular verb and all. Flip that once in your head and three classic English-speaker mistakes disappear at the same time.