The Dreaded Word Thong

Being a teacher I have to be very careful with my vocabulary. Even when I am pronouncing words I must be careful so that the students do not misinterpret what I say. If I do not do this then there can be some very embarrassing moments because the student has misheard or misunderstood what I said. I want to be a good example to my students and use words appropriately and avoid embarrassing moments. Using less familiar words help the students build vocabulary and some of them enjoy looking up words they do not know or trying to figure out what I said..

In the last couple of years I have found myself more than once facing a classroom full of students with their mouths hanging open looking at me in astonishment. How would I dare say that? Then I find myself explaining to them that when I was young that word had a whole different meaning than it has today. Now over the years this has happened with a few words such as gay. Many songs used to read “ let’s all be happy and gay”, but not the gay that our students think about. Gay is not real hard to explain away to students and they get a laugh out of it. But the other word leaves them with astonished looks. So what is that word. The word is ‘thong’. Now when I was young ‘thong’ was what you wore on your feet. Today the students refer to them as Flip flops.

This has lead to several embarrassing moments when I have told kids that they cannot wear thongs on a field trip and I will not let them on the bus if they have them on. Their response, of course, is “Are you going to check?” Oops!

To correct this mistake I decided to find alternative words to use for items that I wear on my feet. Boy, what a list. When I went looking the list was so long that I had to pick and choose. Evidently our multicultured society has adopted many shoe words from other cultures. So now I have made a list of words that I can use for footwear. I didn’t know there were so many, and these are only the ones that I have heard.

Overshoes was what I called them, now they are arctics, boots, galoshes, ski boots, bootee, hip boots, storm rubbers, toe rubbers,

Gym shoes, and tennis shoes was what I called them, now they are sneakers, Nikes, running shoes, smart shoe, sport sandals, daps, deck shoes, drug shoes, flyers, gymmers, high-tops, joggers, sabogs, skippies, sneaks, speed shoes, sport shoes track shoes, and wrestling shoes and odor eaters.

Then when you go out on the street and look down at all those shoes passing by and you will see: loafers, mules, moccasins, sandals, platforms, pumps, oxfords, Wellingtons,
cleats, sling pumps, clogs, slippers, tap shoes, toe shoes, spurs, spikes, ballet slippers, roller skates and thongs. Oops flip flops and wedgies. Oh, oh, I’ll have to choose another one than wedgies or I’ll have another shocked classroom.