two fashion terms

[William Ryan]

My youngest daughter (12) says they still call them 'gym pumps' (we live 
on the southern border of London); in my youth serious male ballroom 
dancers wore shiny black patent leather pumps, perhaps still do; 
Scottish and Irish folk dancers wear pumps, so do ballet dancers (at 
least in the UK). Most of these appear to be sold in the USA as 'flats', 
but sometimes also as 'pumps': Barneys New York are currently 
advertising 'Miu Miu Sweetheart pumps' at the sale price of $220. I also 
have found a few advertising sites which sell 'court shoes' in the US, 
both in the UK sense and in the sense of 'tennis shoes'. Utterly 
confusing, time-wasting, but fascinating - hard on Russian translators!

Will Ryan


John Dunn wrote:
> Far be it from me to add a further layer of confusion, but where I come from, pumps were what we wore on our feet for PE lessons in school (i.e. what were known elsewhere as plimsolls).  I suspect that both terms have been replaced by 'trainers', though, living as I do at the top of an ivory tower, I cannot speak with certainty.
>
> John Dunn.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kristen Harkness <kmhst16 at PITT.EDU>
> To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 10:17:44 -0400
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] two fashion terms
>
> Another two cents: We recently had a discussion about tufli-lodochkoi  
> in my department (for Russian and the Czech variant).  We concluded  
> that if you are translating for a US audience, not many people know  
> what "court shoes" are these days so pumps is the better option.  In  
> the US, "pumps" means a dressy woman's shoe with a heel.  They may  
> have a sling back rather than a closed back, but a closed back is the  
> "classic" variant.
>
> Also, in the US ochki-babochki are more properly "cat eye  
> glasses" (sometimes written "cat-eye glasses" or "cat's eye glasses"),  
> not "cat eyeglasses."
>
> Kristen Harkness
>
>
> Kristen Harkness
> PhD Candidate
> University of Pittsburgh
> History of Art and Architecture
> 104 Frick Fine Arts Building
> Pittsburgh, PA 15260
> kmhst16 at pitt.edu
>
> John Dunn
> Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
> University of Glasgow, Scotland
>
> Address:
> Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
> 40137 Bologna
> Italy
> Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
>
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