athletic shoes (yellow pages)

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:30 PM -0400 9/23/06, sagehen wrote:
>...
>It must have been an extraordinarily tone-deaf merchant  who named his shop
>The Athlete's Foot!  Or am I hopelessly out-of-date in thinking "athlete's
>foot" is still a particularly intractable fungal infection that people go
>to great lengths to avoid?

I'm sure it was an intended pun and not an oversight.  Whether it was
a successful branding on the model of "With a name like Smuckers it
has to be good", or just a memorable name because of the double-take
effect (at least before they became established), I can't say.

The original, non-footwaric meaning of "athlete's foot" is still
alive and well, to judge from the many commercials for products to
relieve the condition.

LH

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