Plimsoll shoe

For the American rock band, see The Plimsouls.

A small-sized plimsoll with a plaid design, using a CVO (Circular Vamp Oxford) design/style.

An adult-sized plimsoll.

A plimsoll shoe, plimsoll, or plimsole is a British English word for a type of athletic shoe with a canvas upper and rubber sole, developed as beachwear in the 1830s by the Liverpool Rubber Company. The shoe was originally, and often still is in parts of the United Kingdom, called a 'sand shoe' and acquired the nickname 'plimsoll' in the 1870s.^{[citation needed]} This name derived, according to Nicholette Jones' book "The Plimsoll Sensation", because the coloured horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the Plimsoll line on a ship's hull, or because, just like the Plimsoll line on a ship, if water got above the line of the rubber sole, the wearer would get wet.

Traditional school plimsolls with elastic instead of laces.

In the UK plimsolls were compulsory in schools' physical education lessons. Regional terms are common: in Northern Ireland and central Scotland they are sometimes known as gutties; "sannies" (from 'sand shoe') is also used in Scotland.^[1] In parts of the West Country and Wales they are known as "daps" or "dappers". In London and the home counties and much of the West Midlands and north west of England they are known as "pumps"^[2]. There is a widespread belief that "daps" is taken from a factory sign - "Dunlop Athletic Plimsoles" which was called "the DAP factory". However, this seems unlikely as the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary of "dap" for a rubber soled shoe is a March 1924 use in the Western Daily Press newspaper; Dunlop did not acquire the Liverpool Rubber Company (as part of the merger with the Macintosh group of companies) until 1925.

As it was commonly used for corporal punishment in the British Commonwealth, where it was the typical gym shoe (part of the school uniform), plimsolling is also a synonym for a slippering.^{[citation needed]}

Outside of the United Kingdom

In most of English-speaking North America, they are known as sneakers, tennis shoes, or deck shoes depending on the regional dialect.^{[citation needed]}

In Australia and other places such footwear is still referred to as a sandshoe or more simply with teenagers "canvas shoe", and include the similar shoe, the Dunlop Volley.^[3]

In South Africa they are called tekkies and in East Africa tackies.

In India, white plimsolls are often worn by school children and are known as Keds dating from the 1970s and earlier, and more commonly, as "canvas shoes". The brown version is used by most police and military units as a gym training shoe; they are also part of the uniform of the Batman.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. ^ "sannies - Dictionary of Playground Slang (Online)". www.odps.org. http://www.odps.org/glossword/index.php?a=term&d=4&t=9823. Retrieved 2010-01-19. 
2. ^ "BBC Word Map - enter What they wear and Child's soft shoes"". www.bbc.co.uk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/results/wordmap/. Retrieved 2011-09-27. 
3. ^ "Sneaker pimps". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2005-06-21. http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion-police/sneaker-pimps/2005/06/20/1119119774360.html.