Good question, and as much as I have heard that word used for shoes, I've never thought to question it.
Here's what I found in the online etymology dictionary: "'low shoe without fasteners,' 1555, perhaps echoic of the sound made when walking in them, or perhaps from Du. pampoesje, from Javanese pampoes, of Arabic origin."
I had no idea it was such an old term. I tend to think of pumps as plain shoes with heels, and the AHD confirms this, except it says origin unknown.
I don't think of pumps as being low shoes, really, either. Well . . . compared to my very comfortable, practical librarian shoes, pumps are definitely fancy heels.
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
The word pump isn't really used here for that kind of shoe. Pumps were what I wore in PE (gym) at school. A bit like a very flimsy canvas topped training shoe. I've heard the american usage and am familiar with its meaning but I've never heard a British person use it the same way.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
Gosh, based on the title of this thread, I thought it was gonna be about sexy Russian spies seducing men in the CIA. That vamp would let him play with her toebox until the heel would come unlaced and have his tongue wagging at last. Hummfff... some gumshoe I'd make!
A plimsoll mark, or line, is the (usually) red line on a ship that marks the point above which water should not go when it is being loaded and setting lower in the water. Named after Samuel Plimsoll. It's also what the British used to call tennis shoes from the red line that used to run around them.
quote:Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy: Gosh, based on the title of this thread, I thought it was gonna be about sexy Russian spies seducing men in the CIA. That vamp would let him play with her toebox until the heel would come unlaced and have his tongue wagging at last. Hummfff... some gumshoe I'd make!
I read a story like that once . . . I wonder if you've read it too!
******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama
Sometimes I find these threads a bit like parallel play! For me, it is back to "pump."
My son and I were listening to a basketball game tonight, and the announcer said that he "pumped" the ball to so-and-so. I asked my son what that meant, and he said, "I don't know; probably a fast pass." So, it is a basketball term, at any rate. Oh, and there are "pump fakes" in basketball, too, my son told me, but I wouldn't be able to explain them.
"Pumping" the basketball is throwing, tossing, firing it to the right person. A "fake pump" is a movement to the right with the ball, to get that defensive person out of your face, while you then "pump" it to the left.
