A plimsoll or plimsoll shoe is a type of athletic shoe with a canvas upper and rubber sole, developed as beachwear in the 1830s by the Liverpool Rubber Company (later to become Dunlop). The shoe was originally, and often still is in parts of the UK, called a 'sand shoe' and acquired the nickname 'plimsoll' in the 1870s. This name derived either because of the colored horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the Plimsoll line on a ship's hull, or because, just like the Plimsoll line on a ship, if water got above the line of the rubber sole, the wearer would get wet. As it was commonly used for corporal punishment in the British Commonwealth, where it was the typical gym shoe (part of the school uniform), plimsolling is also a synonym for a slippering. They were generally black or white with a few in brown.
- In most of English-speaking North America, they are known as sneakers or tennis shoes, depending on the regional dialect. Also, shoes are colloquially referred to as "Chucks" — in reference to Converse's Chuck Taylor All Star shoe — usually regardless of the manufacturer.
- In Australia and other places such footwear is still referred to as a sandshoe, and include the similar shoe, the Dunlop Volley. The American term, "chucks", is only used to describe the Converse shoes.[1]
- In the UK these shoes were compulsory in schools' physical education lessons and today are still known as Plimsolls, except in Northern Ireland and western Scotland where they are usually known as gutties and parts of Southern England and Wales, where they are known as daps (taken from the factory sign - "Dunlop Athletic Plimsoles" locally called "the DAP factory") or dappers. They are also known as pumps. In South Africa they are called tekkies.
Their use however is decreasing with trainers being used more often. However, the shoe has become an icon of many generations -- and music genres, including Grunge, hip-hop, emo and gangsta rap.
