R N E V O LIO y L s Weekl I M 4 ader de! Re tionwi Na
of Ventura CountySimi Valley Edition of Ventura County Week of July 6, 2015
The Neatest Little Paper Ever Read
LigntningBiz, Inc.
Vol. I Issue No. 28 VCTidbits.com
TIDBITS® WEARS SHOES
by Janet Spencer On July 5, 1858, the first shoe manufacturing machine was patented in Massachusetts. Come along with Tidbits as we wear shoes! IN THE BEGINNING • A slipshoe was an old word for a slipper, comfortable footwear for use in the home. People who wore these informal slippers in public places instead of the regular shoes were said to be "slipshod." Now it means anything done in a careless fashion. •When horses are "rough-shod" they have shoes on which have the ends of the nails sticking out. This gives the horse more traction, but it tears up the ground the animal travels over. When someone "rides rough-shod" over another person, they are trampling the ground beneath them without caring. •Wooden shoes called "sabots" were popular in days gone by because they were cheaper than leather shoes. They gave us our word "sabotage." One story is that when workers went on strike, they would throw their "sabots" into the factory's machinery, ruining the gears in an act of "sabotage." Another more likely story is that because walking in wooden shoes is clunky and clumsy, and people wearing them tended to be bungling, therefore anything that was deliberately bungled up was "sabotaged." •Stiletto comes from the Italian word stilo meaning 'dagger' or 'stylus.' The contemporary stiletto was invented in the 1950s by Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo, who made his ¿UVW SDLU IRU 0DULO\Q 0RQURH XVLQJ DOOLJDWRU KLGH The styles back then were tame by today's standards, with heels no taller than about 3 inches. • The word "sneaker" is often attributed to an advertising agent who, in 1917, coined the term because the rubber sole made the shoe stealthy. The name "sneakers" referred to how quiet the rubber soles were on the ground, in contrast to noisy hard leather-soled dress shoes. Someone wearing sneakers could "sneak up" on you while someone wearing standard shoes could not. • Australian fashion lore has it that Ugg really does stand for "ugly." The sheepskin boots have been used by outdoorsy Australians for decades, but they were designed to be utilitarian rather than fashionable. 6DQGDOV ZHUH ¿UVW ZRUQ LQ ZDUP FOLPDWHV ZKHUH the soles of the feet needed protection but the top of the feet needed to be cooler. Continued Next Page...