PE pumps

[goingtocalifornia]

What are PE pumps? What kind of footwear are they?

thank you

 

[Barb_D]

Could you please provide the full context for where you saw this?

 

[Mr_Ben]

Barb is right, I'm assuming they are shoes (I could be very wrong but you haven't given us any help) and even making that assumption they could be anything from this:

to this:

 

[goingtocalifornia]

Could you please provide the full context for where you saw this?

Not much context as it was overheard but I did some more research and I think these are soft shoes worn by children for Physical Education.

 

[Rover_KE]

That's right.

They are also called plimsolls.

Here they are:

Plimsolls

PE means physical education.

Rover

 

[Mr_Ben]

Maybe something like these then? Results for pumps - chiarafashion

 

[freezeframe]

Smart Uniforms -Sportswear Accessories-P.E Pumps

 

[Raymott]

Interesting, they all look different. So what makes a shoe not be a plimsoll or a pump?

 

[Barb_D]

Fascinating. I know pumps only as the high-heeled, closed-toe shoes for ladies in the first picture. And I'd never even heard of a plimsoll before!

 

[curates-egg]

Interesting, they all look different. So what makes a shoe not be a plimsoll or a pump?

"Shoe" is the superordinate, or all-embracing word, which includes all types of footwear. The hyponyms of "shoe" include "sandal", "pump", "brogue". "trainer", etc. "Pump" itself can mean several things, one of which Rover_KE illustrated.

In the 1960s and 1970s it was a common word in Britsh schools for those flexible shoes worn during Physical Education lessons.

 

[BobK]

In 'The Voices of Britain' - I think that was the title (but I sold mine because though full of interesting research it was virtually unreadable, because the editors presumably thought that a meaningful transcription system would frighten off the general readership they were aiming for :-() 'plimsoll' was one of the key words they looked at. I always called them 'plimsolls', but my eldest brother (13 years older, and privately educated*; also old enough to have done National Service - so with an environment totally different from mine) called them 'pumps'. That book identified half a dozen different words used in various place, but those two are the main ones.

b

PS* But at his schools they didn't have 'PE' (or even its more rigorous fore-runner PT [Physical Training]), but 'gym' (or even maybe the now archaic 'physical jerks', or the early 20th-cent. - even perhaps 19th-cent. - 'callisthenics'); so he wouldn't have said 'PE pumps'. They were just 'pumps'.