Athletics made geeky!

[muckefuck]

Ah, conversations with my older brother! Always sui generis. Every once in a while, I'll lull myself into approaching one as I might a conversation with anyone else, but every time I'm abruptly made to realise my mistake. Such as last night when he tried to finish his salad while I was telling an anecdote about my Chinese class. I've told him literally dozens of times that I absolutely hate hearing him eat over the phone. "I thought you couldn't hear it." No, Bill Kramer, you do not have the preternatural ability possessed by caitalainn to surreptitiously finish an entire meal without ever interrupting the flow of conversation. *sigh* At least I'll be well prepared for when my nephews begin picking up the phone.

It's a topic that would be more appreciated here anyway. One of the new words for last lesson was 運動 or "exercise, physical activity" and Liu laoshi was questioning some of the translations given for compounds like 運動場 (literally "open space for exercise") or 運動會 ("exercise meet"). Among four native speakers of English, we came up with at least three equivalents for the former--"athletic field", "playing field", "football field"--to replace the book's suggestion of "playground", which Laoshi thought sounded too juvenile. With little dissention (and lots of painful recollection), everyone agreed on "field day" for the latter, since Laoshi described it as a school day given over to athletic contests between students.

She was also taken aback by "tennis shoes" for 球鞋--surely we called them "sneakers"? This generated the most comment, with Texas-born Xiaofei affirming that "tennis shoes" was indeed universal throughout the South and me confirming that it was current where I grew up (not in the South, but some lexical items considered "Southern" from the viewpoint of Chicago). I mentioned the baffling English "trainers" and the old-fashioned "gym shoes", which I described as sounding "very 50s"--but the middle-aged Rockford native opined that to her this term always sounded "very 80s". "Athletic shoes" was also thrown out and mention was made of ongoing specialisation into dedicated shoes for each activity.

Comments

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

I still call them gym shoes.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Same here. "Tennis shoes" sounds slightly affected to me, actually-- the sort of thing a teacher who for some reason was avoiding "sneakers" or "gym shoes" might say. I realize that's not accurate, but either of the other options strikes my ear as more natural. I think that "sneakers" was the standard for my childhood in upstate NY in the 70s, "gym shoes" for my adolescence in southeastern MI in the 80s, though I haven't gotten the impression that it's become archaic since. (On the other hand, it's not as if the term comes up frequently in my conversations or anything. For all I'm likely to know, "shirt", "pants", and "shoes" are all hopelessly obsolete terms for anything other than marketing purposes.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I think "sneakers" was preferred by the PA native; both she and the Illinoisan were quick to identify "gym shoes" as a Northern regionalism on a par with "pop". (An inevitable but mercifully brief discussion of "pop", "soda", "coke", etc. immediately ensued.)