http://www.waywordradio.org/sneakers-tennis-shoes-trainers/ A lively radio program about words and language, broadcast on many NPR stations and heard by podcast around the world. It's more than grammar! Sat, 18 May 2013 23:30:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.waywordradio.org/sneakers-tennis-shoes-trainers/#comment-2794 azagofsk Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:36:47 +0000 http://www.waywordradio.org/sneakers-tennis-shoes-trainers/#comment-2794 When I grew up in New York City in the 1950s, there was quite a distinction between sneakers and tennis shoes. In school gym classes, we were required to wear sneakers and were not allowed to wear tennis shoes. By sneakers, they referred to a high-topped rubber-soled shoe. The high tops had a black canvass upper that laced to support your ankle. Tennis shoes were white with low tops that had no ankle support. Because of the lack of ankle support, sneakers were required for games like basketball, thus making tennis shoes rare as few kids could afford two pairs of play shoes. Perhaps if you grew up in an Annie Hall community where tennis was the local sport, then tennis shoes would be the norm and be indistinguishable from sneakers in the local jargon.

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