Sneakers Are Named

by Streeter Seidell on January 27, 2009

1892 - Inventor Adam Abbot bursts into the office he shares with his fellow inventors.

Adam: I've done it, Gentlemen! I've created a new, comfortable type of footwear!

Steve: Oh?

Adam: Yes. You see, the walls of the shoe are composed of stiffened cotton and the soles are made of formed rubber. They are light, flexible and great for athletics.

Steve: Athletics?

Adam: Yes, it's a new word. It describes physical activities such as bi-cycling or fast-walking.

Martin: Well, why didn't you just say fast-walking, man?!

Adam: My apologies. Now, gentlemen, what shall we call this new type of footwear?

Martin: Perhaps 'rubber soled footwearers'?

Adam: Good, good. But I think we can do better. Steve? Anything?

Steve: Perhaps, 'Adam Abbot's Fashionable Atletikes Shoes for Upstanding Men of Position'?

Adam: Did you mean, "Athletics?"

Steve: Yes, whatever that newfangled word is.

Adam: Perhaps...

From the shadows, the office recluse, Grimley, speaks up in low, stiffled tones.

Grimley: They appear to be good for sneaking.

Adam: Yes...yes, I suppose they are.

Grimley: If one were so inclined, one could sneak beneath the cover of dark down the slicked cobbles of the quay in absolute silence. Nary a longshoreman would hear his approach. His hook be damned, not a stevedore from here to Southampton could be truly safe on the quay after nightfall.

Adam: Right...

Grimley: Or perhaps, if one were so inclined, one could sneak upon a fair maiden carelessly walking unescorted from an evening at the operahouse. Not a footfall would be heard by said maiden until it was too late.

Adam: Too late for what, exactly?

Grimley: ...

Adam: Nevermind. Now, I think we were onto something with 'Adam Abbot's Fashion...'

Grimley: Call them 'Sneakers' or I will follow you home this eve.

...

Adam: Sneakers, then. Yes, sneakers. Good work, Grimley.

Grimley: Bring me a pie of meat.

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