How do you refer to rubber-soled athletic shoes? Are they sneakers or tennis shoes? Something else, like trainers? When canvas shoes with soft rubber soles came into use, they were so quiet compared to wood-soled shoes that one could literally sneak about. Outside the Northeast, tennis shoe is the more common term. This is part of a complete episode.
You must log in to post a comment.
Take Tea for the Fever (episode #1508) 10/22/2018: Silence comes in many forms. Writer Paul Goodman says there is, for example, the noisy silence of "resentment and self-recrimination," and the helpful, participatory silence... [more]
Sundog (episode #1507) 10/15/2018: A clever pun can make the difference between a so-so phrase and a memorable one. The phrase "the last straw" refers to an old fable... [more]
Oh, For Cute! (episode #1506) 10/08/2018: A stereotype is a preconceived notion about a person or group. Originally, though, the word stereotype referred to a printing device used to produce lots... [more]
Coinkydink (episode #1505) 10/01/2018: Sometimes it's a challenge to give a book a chance: How many pages should you read before deciding it's not worth your time? There's a... [more]
Sweet Dreams (episode #1450) 09/22/2018: In deafening workplaces, like sawmills and factories, workers develop their own elaborate sign language to discuss everything from how their weekend went to when the... [more]
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.