These days it seems like there’s an athletic shoe made for virtually every kind of physical activity.
For example, we have “tennis shoes”. We have “runners”. We have “walkers”. And we even have “dancers”.
Well, for many years we’ve also had “sneakers”!
As far as I know “sneaking” isn’t an athletic event, but folks have been wearing “sneakers” since the mid-1800’s – and the first “sneakers” weren’t even athletic shoes.
Here’s the story about how athletic shoes came to be commonly known as sneakers…
Back in the days when “cobblers” still made shoes by hand, the soles they put on their shoes were typically made of hard materials that made a clopping sound when you walked in them.
And as you might expect, you could usually hear someone walking from the proverbial “mile away”.
Then along came the invention of vulcanized rubber…
That amazing new material made fantastic shoe soles. Rubber soled shoes were more comfortable to walk in and they didn’t make that distracting “clopping” sound that shoes had always made in the past.
If you wanted to sneak around without being heard, rubber soled shoes made it a lot easier to do so without being heard from a mile away!
Since virtually all athletic shoes have rubber soles, they are often referred to as “sneakers”!
Makes sense, right?
To finish up, check out the very short video below that features 5 truly awesome shoe hacks!
Note: As always, you can watch the video at full screen by clicking the “square” icon in the lower-right corner of the video after it begins playing.