OK, so I don't know what trainers are...are you talking sneakers? LOL Don't folks wear sneakers to sightsee?<BR>( I said, pls don't laugh!)

Where I come from we call them running shoes, walking shoes.<BR><BR>I think sneakers are the same????????????<BR><BR>Yes, people all over the world wear them.

thank goodness; I couldn't imagine sightseeing all day in shoes

The Brits call them &quot;trainers.&quot;

So what do they Brits call brassieres for pre-teen girls? &quot;Sneaking bras&quot;?

The first time a Scot friend used the word &quot;trainers&quot; in a clothing description... I had a mental pic of those plastic things you put over baby diapers when they're toilet training. <BR><BR>Since my friend is in his mid 40's... the vision was rather... ummmmm... hysterical.<BR><BR>LOL<BR><BR>~ Sheryl

We call 'sneakers' 'trainers' in the UK. The first time I heard your use of the word 'sneakers' was in the Billy Joel song - 'Its still rock and roll to me'... something about a cheap pair of sneakers!! <BR><BR>I have also heard trainers being called 'pumps'!! (that was in Wales, but I don't know if thats a general term there). As for the training bra question, I don't know what we call them here - probably just a 'training' bra or something. (Don't know as havent got kids!).

A lot of people in the US seem to call them &quot;tennis shoes&quot;, even when they are not, because originally, that was kind of the only reason you'd wear that type of shoe. Now, tennis shoes are different than what people really are wearing. They don't call athletic shoes sneakers where I live in the US or where I grew up, but a sneaker would be a very lightweight canvas tie shoe like Keds makes, not Nikes, etc. I think they are usually just called athletic shoes or running shoes here (or walking shoes if they are sold as that).

This is not definitive, since I think it's wholly based on my own prejudices, butBR><BR>Gym shoes, or gymmies, or sandshoes, or sannies- were those black canvas things we wore for gym (PE) in primary school. Some people call them pumps. Oh, or gutties, if you're Scottish and down market- I don't know where that comes from.<BR><BR>Sneakers conjures up the baseball boots of the 1950s, but maybe not with the bits up the ankles.<BR><BR>Tennis shoes, or tennies, are for playing tennis in, and are always white and used to be always canvas too.<BR><BR>Running shoes would usually have spikes in them and would be called spikes.<BR><BR>Things you jog in are training shoes, or trainers, and are made by Nike, or Adidas, or someone like that.<BR><BR>Walking shoes are for serious long walks in the countryside and are scaled down boots.<BR><BR>We NEVER call bras brassieres. And when I was young training bras didn't have a name. Now they're called...training bras<BR><BR>So now you know....<BR>

Well, in London, 'gymshoes' were called 'plimsolls' (in my family anyway). But that was before the designers invented added brand value, and other such excuses for extortion.<BR><BR>We do understand what 'sneakers' means, it just sounds odd ('sneaking' is or was one of the greatest of crimes in a child's eyes, after all). <BR><BR>Which reminds me, that what the rest of the world calls Snickers was launched in Britain as Marathon (because someone who snickers is probably not very nice). But eventually, marketing consistency won out, so they changed the name. One of the TV ads had a backpacker coming into a sweetshop, with his trainers starting to fall apart, and looking all around for something, and when he asked in a broad Australian accent 'Where's your Snickers?' the shopkeeper looked at his feet and said 'So it would seem, sir'.

Following on from Sheila - when I was young we didn't have &quot;training bras&quot;. When one was, ahem, well enough endowed, ahem, to wear a bra one wore a regular bra. When was too flat for a bra one didn't wear a bra.<BR><BR>What's to train? You surely can &quot;train&quot;/ learn how to wear one when you get the first one you need.<BR><BR>Just my tuppence...<BR><BR>