Tenny Runners (tennis shoes) (1965)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Larry, I and my peers always confined the name "Keds" to the brand itself.  Same with "P.F. Flyers."  "U.S. Keds" were pricier and believed to be of better quality. They were also patriotic. (The TV commercials played up the "US" element: "U.S. Keds ! By United States Rubber !")

  Leaving the Flyers in some kind of Soviet Bloc of kid-dom.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Tenny Runners (tennis shoes) (1965)
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At 12:01 PM -0400 9/22/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>US Keds were the gym shoe (I'd forgotten that that term was also used
>in St. Louis, but only among working-class kids; the middle class wint
>with tinnis shoes) of choice among black St. Louisans in my day, too.
>But we who wore B. F. Goodrich / Hood Posture-Foundation Flyers did so
>only because our parents wouldn't spring for the more-expensive Keds
>and not because we wanted to.

Am I right in remembering (if somewhat vaguely) that "Keds" was used
as a quasi-generic in those years (the 50's, I guess we're talking
about) for sneakers, extending to other brands on occasion, a la
"xerox", "Coke"? Clearly that would have ceased when the competitors
caught up and eventually took over, but for a while I seem to recall
they were all Keds.

LH

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