BBC 6分钟英语 为什么我们喜欢运动鞋

English, from BBC,

learning English. Hello, and welcome to Six Minute English.

I'm Sophie, and I'm

Neil. I see you're wearing trainers today.

Neil, of course, I don't wear anything else.

Well, trainers, or, to use the American term, sneakers, are the subject of today's show.

They

are ubiquitous. That means you can find them everywhere.

People wear them across the globe, men, women, kids, teenagers and pensioners.

And did you know that 85% of people who buy trainers don't wear them for sports?

That makes sense to me. I wear mine because they're comfortable.

They're also very tatty. That means old and in bad condition.

If you don't mind me saying so, hmm, I should probably get a new pair.

There's a lot of choice out there.

High tops, gel air, classic, retro, the list goes on.

But before we go any further, I have a question for you.

What's a popular US slang term for trainers?

Is it A cakes, B wedges or C flats?

I'll go for kicks. OK? Well, we'll find out if you got the answer right later on in the show.

Now, it has become socially acceptable to wear athletic apparel or clothing, including trainers, in situations where ten years ago it would not.

Yes, I think my apparel of genes and tatty trainers is socially acceptable at our workplace.

Anyway, mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is famous for his dressed down or informal look of hoodies and trainers.

You can pay anything from a few pounds from branded trainers to thousands of pounds for limited edition brands like Nike or Adidas.

And limited edition means something produced in very small numbers.

Why would anybody spend a thousand pounds on trainers?

And how many people would actually recognize that you were wearing night limited edition ones rather than regular ones?

Other sneakerheads kneel A sneak ahead is somebody who collects limited edition sneakers.

It's an American term, but trainers are not new.

In the 19th century, people wore sneakers as a mark of their prosperity or economic success.

Let's listen to Elizabeth Samilhak, curator of the Bartashi Museum in Toronto, in Canada.

This new industrial age actually ushered in a new class, the emerging middle class, that was able to now have leisure time because of their new economic success.

And so what they did was they wanted to sort of express the fact that they had leisure time by playing, but they also wanted to signify that they were doing these things by their sartorial choices.

And so the sneaker impart was invented to meet the needs of this new class, so that they could very conspicuously show that they were playing What does it mean to usher in Sophie?

It means to mark the beginning of something.

In this case, the Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of a new social class, the middle class.

He made a lot of money from industry.

And why were they interested in trainers?

They wanted a way of showing people that they were so rich they didn't need to work all the time.

And by wearing trainers, they were saying, I'm busy playing tennis.

Satorial, by the way, means related to clothes these days.

Wearing trainers doesn't reveal much about social class.

E.g., mark Zuckerberg and I look surprisingly similar in our hoodies and trainers, you'd have to guess which one of us was a multi billionaire in which one was not.

People respond to current trends in popular sport through the trainers they wear.

And here's Matt pal for the US Consumer Research Group, NPD tell us more.

When I 1st got into the retail business in the seventies, the sexy sport, if you will, with tennis, and we all wore tennis apparel for casual wear, and we played tennis and we wore tennis shoes, and we identified with athletes like Macinro and borg And and Connors.

Over time, though, it has become even a broader range.

There was a jogging craze in the seventies.

Everybody was was out jogging, and then that became a full fudge running business.

The basketball business really exploded in the mid late eighties with the emergence of of Michael Jordan.

So Matt Powell knows a thing or two about current consumer trends.

He says in the 1970s, there was a craze or enthusiasm for tennis and jogging, and this led to big sales of the apparel associated with these sports.

Our tennis shoes still sexy, sophie, maybe, but basketball high tops are sexier.

Michael Jordan started that trend back in the 1980s, and it's still going strong.

Well, we're running out of time.

Let's go back to our quiz question.

I asked him, what is a slang term for trainers?

Is

it A kicks, B wedges or C flats?

It has to be kicks. I'm right, aren't I-I have to tell you, neil, you're right?

Yes. Which is our shoes or boots with the triangular, wed shaped heel and flats?

Are

a woman's shoe with no heel?

I know my onions, you see, sophie?

Yes. In other words, you know a lot about something you do.

Now, let's remember the words we heard today Ubiquitous Tatty apparel.

Dress down, limited edition Sneak ahead.

Prosperity, usher in sartorial craze. No uranions.

That's the end of today's 6 min English.

Don't forget to join us again soon.

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