Things that make you :)

[The Johnster]

History lesson, pay attention at the back, there'll be a test later...

 

Samuel Plimsoll, 'The Sailor's Friend' (didn't have that sort of connotation then), 1824-1898, was a Liberal MP who campaigned against the shipowners' of the day (as a group of red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalists these 'stards made mill-owners and mine-owners look like safety campaigners) all-too-common practice of deliberately overloading vessels and heavily insuring the ships and the cargoes ('coffin ships) which made them good profit when the ships were lost at sea, irresepective of the death-rate amongst crews.  Some captains were complicit in this.  He managed, against serious and powerful opposition (he once had to be restrained from punching Disraeli in the House) to introduce the 'Plimsoll Line', a series of marks on the side of the hull of a ship that indicated the level of safe loading, slightly different for open sea, sheltered waters, and fresh water, that could not be legally ignored.  This has been adopted world-wide.

 

Dunlop devised rubber-soled canvas top shoes for light sports wear, suitable for the wooden floors of school and other gymnasia, in the 1920s and the distinct decorative line at the join between the rubber sole and the canvas upper resembled the Plimsoll Line on ships, resulting in these shoes being generally called 'plimsolls'  Dunlop marketing jumped aboard with 'Dunlop Athletic Plimsolls',= daps, though for many years I thought the name came from the noise they made when someone was chasing you; dap-dap-dap-dap-dap...

 

Also called 'pumps', no idea where that originated, and, if they were white and had to be blancoed, 'tennis shoes'.  Pumps, IIRC, were always black, had elasticated sides and were 'slip on', daps/plimsolls were lace-up. 'Deck shoes', with canvas in non-monochrome colours, TTBOMK originated in the 80s as a marketing term for expensive designer daps; you're in the shoes aisle at Sainsbury's, mate, you don't own a yacht!

 

Valleys vernacular usage; 'Dew, look a' rer, nawr te, she gorra face like a ripped dap on 'er, inni', the cow'.

 

'Trainers', proper, seemed to arrive with the popularity of jogging, but have become conflated with general casual footwear of the sort that Americans would call 'loafers'.  Another category not yet discussed is basketball shoes/boots.  A basketball shoe is basically a dap, and a basketball boot is basically a high-sided dap that supports your ankles a bit when it's laced up, but both have to have a white plastic toe-cap.  They have very thin soles that do not wear well in street use, but are often cheap and replaceable (as are the other catergories except 'deck shoes', which are only a marketing delusion anyway).

Edited 18 hours ago by The Johnster

[KeithMacdonald]

4 hours ago, Dagworth said:

You forgot the bullhooks

 

Au contraire, mon ami.😀

 

Various place on t'interweb have Ronnie Barker's commentary at the end of a re-run of that great classic. In which he said he has a confession to make, he didn't like the billhooks ending, and changed it. For the London Palladium revised version, a big slovenly girl on overalls comes on, takes the list and says "Right sir, what kind of knockers are you looking for?"

e.g.

 

But I did forget the saw tips.

Edited 18 hours ago by KeithMacdonald

[TheQ]

Deck shoes are a lot older than the 1980s, the real ones are leather uppers with a soft sole to not damage the deck.

The originals were rope soled. 

But they generally were for yachting..

Seaman's shoes of Nelson's time were all leather, the sole would often be suede side out for better grip.

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Size nine, black.

With fork handles, plugs, hoes, peas, washers and big knockers.

And here I thought we were "talking" about casual shoes.

[Ozexpatriate]

12 hours ago, TheQ said:

Seaman's shoes of Nelson's time were all leather, the sole would often be suede side out for better grip.

I thought most of the jolly jack tars in Nelson's navy went barefoot most of the time?

 

Officers wore pumps - with their hose and breeches.

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Also called 'pumps', no idea where that originated

The term 'pump' for shoes is quite old. It is still the normal term used for women's shoes without laces or buckles - often with high heels.

 

It is also still used for the formal shoe a gentleman might wear to attend the opera - search for "opera pump".

 

"Pump" as a shoe dates back to 1719 and was used by Dafoe in Robinson Crusoe. 

 

The specific term "pump shoe" is even older: OED claims:

Quote

The earliest known use of the noun pump shoe is in the mid 1500s.

OED's earliest evidence for pump shoe is from 1534.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

'Trainers', proper, seemed to arrive with the popularity of jogging, but have become conflated with general casual footwear of the sort that Americans would call 'loafers'.

No. A "trainer" is not a "loafer". In the US a "loafer" is a 'dressy' slip-on shoe without laces. Very similar styles are sold to men and women.

 

Search for "penny loafer", "horsebit loafer" etc for the style.

 

"Trainers" are athletic shoes and encompass terms in the US like "tennis shoes", "basketball shoes", "kicks" etc. People don't use the term "joggers" so much. This is usually applied to the person jogging. "Running shoes" are usually quite specific. Perhaps Britons would call these "trainers" too. I wouldn't know.

[Stray]

[Dunsignalling]

39 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

No. A "trainer" is not a "loafer". In the US a "loafer" is a 'dressy' slip-on shoe without laces. Very similar styles are sold to men and women.

 

Search for "penny loafer", "horsebit loafer" etc for the style.

 

"Trainers" are athletic shoes and encompass terms in the US like "tennis shoes", "basketball shoes", "kicks" etc. People don't use the term "joggers" so much. This is usually applied to the person jogging. "Running shoes" are usually quite specific. Perhaps Britons would call these "trainers" too. I wouldn't know.

 

Trainers are (or have derived from) athletic shoes but the vast majority of those who wear them (on either side of the pond) are anything but. The strength of construction is exploited in load bearing rather than dealing with kinetic forces exerted by the wearer.

 

Nowadays the main point of many brands seems to be impressing ones peer group by how much you can afford/are willing to spend on them.

 

I would normally think of "running shoes" being the spiked sort worn by sprinters.

 

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I thought most of the jolly jack tars in Nelson's navy went barefoot most of the time?

 

Officers wore pumps - with their hose and breeches.

 

Yes and no, try standing on a narrow stepped (barred) ladder for sometime wearing shoes, that is painful enough , climbing rope ratlines that are just a half inch thick up a mast for an hour is just impossible. From recoveries from wreaks  large quantities of shoes have been recovered..

 A shoe from the 1700s. That's because leather goods in use don't last long at sea. In Nelson's time, shoemakers would come on board with premade shoes, no left and right, all the same. As time moved on boots became more common.

They were a seaman's prized possession.

Below decks shoes would be removed, stored in kit bags, to reduce wear and stop foot rot.

 

Men of HMS Victory at Trafalgar" by John D. Clarke mentions the mast sale of the belongings of Andrew Sack, Yeoman of sheets, who died at Trafalgar, among were 1 pair of boots and 4 pair of shoes.

 

An officers shoes were of course much more finely made to measure, and kept highly polished ( by a junior seaman)

[westernfan]

On 22/10/2024 at 07:41, Stray said:

Our P.E teacher was quite a good shot with a plimmy (what we called them in the 60's). 

Our art teacher used a blackboard rubber, the type fixed to a wooden block about eight inches long and three inches wide. Get that on the back of the head and you knew about it. His other favourite was a small piece of chalk aimed at the ear and nine times out of ten he would hit it too.

[Hroth]

49 minutes ago, westernfan said:

Our art teacher used a blackboard rubber, the type fixed to a wooden block about eight inches long and three inches wide. Get that on the back of the head and you knew about it. His other favourite was a small piece of chalk aimed at the ear and nine times out of ten he would hit it too.

 

I think it used to be a module in teacher training courses...

 

[franciswilliamwebb]

13 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I think it used to be a module in teacher training courses...

 

Indeed. Mr Chipchase at the grammar school 'what I went to' was a noted board rubber marksman.  Anyone sporting a chalky rectangle on their blazer had been in a lesson with Mr Chipchase earlier that day😉

[kevinlms]

5 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Indeed. Mr Chipchase at the grammar school 'what I went to' was a noted board rubber marksman.  Anyone sporting a chalky rectangle on their blazer had been in a lesson with Mr Chipchase earlier that day😉

Doesn't well as well with whiteboards!