Those damned slippers again
These are slippers. The others are sports shoes.
Are Maltastar’s ace writers infiltrating the newsroom at The Times?
Friday, 5th June 2009
Missing person
Anthea Borg, 20 of Żebbuġ, was reported missing yesterday, the police said. She is five feet, five inches tall and has dark-coloured hair. She was last seen wearing a dark red top, black jeans and a slipper.
Describing sports shoes as slippers, because they’re both ‘papocc’ to some people, is bad enough. But for crying out loud: ‘a slipper’? How come she wasn’t wearing a black jeans, as well, or a trouser?
I feel like writing this in capital letters with lots of exclamation marks, like the elves, but I won’t. Slippers are those fluffy, cosy things you wear only indoors unless you are a depressed person who wears them to the grocer. The lace-up leather or synthetic things that were designed for sports or running but which are now used for everything else are: running shoes, sports shoes, whatever – but not slippers.
Nor should they be called ‘papocc’ in Maltese, either, because they’re not ‘papocc’. They’re ‘zraben’ like all other ‘zraben’ that you wear outdoors.
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Maybe she lost one?
As far as I can remember, all people living in the vicinity of ex-British installations call running shoes a “slipper” because that’s what the British army used to call gym shoes. And in the 1950s they looked just like slippers! The word for bedroom slippers is “papocc tas-sodda”.
[Daphne – I grew up in the vicinity of Tigne barracks and I called them gym shoes or tennis-shoes. They were made of white canvas and had short laces. Slippers were the footwear paired with dressing-gowns, and they still are.]
Maybe Mario wears his slippers to work.
Yes I usually do wear slipers to work, along with a suit and tie. They are really comfy, especially the fluffy ones with Pooh Bear faces on their front. But I like my fake tiger-skin ones most. They are a fashion statement in themselves. That, along with the furry dice on my car rear-view mirrors. The epitome of a Maltese businessman’s outfit.
Please supply photos.
Mario – I see that today’s tension seems to have given you a sense of humour.
@Mario: I doubt that. My father was based in Malta for quite a while and he found the Maltese use of the word ‘slipper’ hilarious. Many general terms can be used from ‘sneakers’ to ‘plimsolls’ (showing my age here) but never ‘slippers’.
[Daphne – Plimsolls! That’s the word. Those white canvas shoes – can’t find a pair nowadays.]
The Times has done this before – they once described a ‘Libyan man wearing a slipper’. I imagine the plural ‘wearing slippers’ isn’t used because in Maltese it would be ‘jilbes is-slipper’.
Actually, they were fashionable about two years ago. I remember picking up a pair of these Tretorn plimsolls at Topman.
Yes, plimsolls, we used to wear white ones to school for PE lessons. Then there were also the ugly navy blue ones, mostly worn by builders, plumbers, dockyard workers, farmers, etc. Does anyone remember the ‘pajpli’ that we used to dye the white ones with? Daphne, I think they actually still exist in some remote village bazaars. I’m sure I saw some not so long ago, unless they were old stock.
I remember blue plimsolls which were lace-ups that went up to the ankle; tat-tromba we used to call them. They were quite heavy on the feet. Shakin’ Stevens used to wear them on stage.
You’re in luck, plimsolls are back.
The colloquial Maltese word for running shoes is ‘sliper’.
[Daphne – You know, this is really very offensive. I can’t understand why working-class Maltese has been made official, standard Maltese, when everywhere else the world that I can think of, the official, standard language is the language of those who are not working-class. I grew up in a Maltese-speaking family, and nobody ever said ‘slipper’, still less ‘sliper’, except when speaking English and referring to the woolly things worn with dressing-gowns. And then it was only ‘a slipper’ when one had gone missing and was being sought. When speaking Maltese, we called slippers ‘papocc’. All other shoes were and still are ‘zarbun’.]
The Times newsroom probably just copied the police statement (just as they normally do to press releases without questioning their content) which incorrectly translated ‘sliper’ to slipper instead of running shoes or gym shoes.
I just stated a point of fact. I did not say I agreed with it. But unfortunately, once a particular word gains popular usage it is assimilated in the language irrespective of its origin. Anyway, as I stated, this was the colloquial term.
Tonio Farrugia, I agree with you, though at times I find the word ‘slippers’ in Maltese rather odd.
I served with the British Army in the UK for 11 years and running shoes, sneakers, gym shoes, tennis shoes etc. were usually referred to as ‘plimsolls’.
The Times also publishes articles in their sports pages copied word for word from the eurosport website. I wonder if they think no one realises…this latest mistake comes as no surprise
Whether we like it or not, the official Maltese words for ‘running shoes’ are both ‘sliper’ (sic) and ‘papocc’. Personally, I prefer just calling them running shoes even when speaking Maltese.
I believe the essential point is that they are not called slippers in English.
A German ‘Slipper’ is an English loafer or low shoe.
Also the Germans call a mobile phone a ‘Handy’, as Stephen Fry so wonderfully explains:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39EPz2JsbUk
Anzi mhux “stripper”! I’ve heard it being used to refer to gym-shoes or plimsolls. As in “Qed jilbes l-istripper”! :)
Fr John Booth used to call them plimsolls and used to correct us when we referred to them as slippers. In Maltese we say “papocc tas-sodda, papocc, papocc tal-fubol”. We also refer to the goalkeeper as “gowler” (goalie) which does not exist in English.
[Daphne – Of course it doesn’t, primarily because the goaler would be the person scoring the goal, and not the person stopping it – or not.]
And no matter how much one writes they still use feet and inches to describe how tall the person is.
From The Times: “Sources said he tried to revive his mother but several attempts, including the aid of a shock machine supplied by paramedics, failed.”
They don’t know what a defibrillator is.
Here is another for you: XOKKAPSOFER meaning SHOCK ABSORBER. Even well known knowledgeable people have said it on television.
@ Mario De Bono
The English refer to their ‘papocc tas-sodda’ as slippers. That is the only meaning the word slippers (not slipper or sliper) has when referring to footwear.
Footwear generally meant for sports/gym/casual wear of a certain style are called trainers, gym shoes, plimsolls, running shoes, tennis shoes and the like as clearly explained above.
When I first came to Malta I found, and still find to this day, the term ‘slipper’ for the above-mentioned attire strange and mildly humorous.
I was once very amused to hear a lady in a Valletta shoe shop, donkey’s years ago (translate that one into Maltese Dr. Muscat!) explaining she needed to buy a ‘stripper’ for her young son. Lucky kid!
Talking of the origin of words, at election time I am so irked when I hear references to “kummissionarju elettorali”. The Maltese word for commissioner has always been kummissarju (from the Italian commissario) until some idiot started using kummissjonarju. And it’s now used officially.
I couldn’t understand why they call them slippers either. It’s like when they call a pencil case, a “pocket”. Pocket mhux tal-qalziet?
Here in Ireland we call them runners or trainers.
We are not alone in these language quirks. The Italians use ‘footing’ for jogging, and ‘speaker’ for newscaster, for example.
[Daphne – Ah, but the Italians don’t live in what is supposed to be a bilingual country, with English as one of the two official languages.]
I remember the sweet enjoyable quarrels with my Gozitan wife who was brought up to call running shoes ‘papocc’. I just couldn’t take it considering all the research and technology that went into my €150 shoes. It was a denigrating insult!
Grrrrrrr. How about ‘pocket’ for pencil box?
My mum used to call them ‘plimsolls’. As a child, they were referred to as ‘P.T. shoes by my teacher in a British Forces school. The word ‘sneakers’ ‘sneaked in’ in the late sixties (to my knowledge) or slightly later.
You have to pronounce the word ‘slip-ehrr’.
[Daphne – Or, if you want to be really annoying and tal-pepe, slip-AH.]
XOKKAPSOFER is not correct. The word is XOKKABSORVER.
Re ‘slippers’, the brown canvas shoes that were ‘standard kit’ issue to the British Army were listed as ‘slippers’ in the QM stock sheet. Issued as part of the ‘gym’ kit along with a huge pair of baggy shorts and an oversize T-shirt, the ‘slippers’ were also used in ‘papocc’ mode that being their secondary purpose – which is where the Maltese ‘sliper’ originated, with the final ‘s’ subsequently dropped for speech economy.
This whole thing was screwed up by whoever came up with the story of Cinderella and her pair of slippers. But can you imagine anyone going to a ball wearing a pair of slippers? And glass ones at that? Only if you’re living in fairyland.
http://maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=2369
“Dr Farrugia said that the salaries in Malta was one of the lowest in the Euro Zone and that more couples are choosing to have less children, while at the time the ageing population of the country is on the increase. “
Oh come on people… we’re talking about a missing girl here, and all these comments on the merits of shoes and slippers and what-not! It’s true that nothing might have happened to her, but something COULD have… so some respect to her and her family please! At least until she is found. I know the other girls were found, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Anthea has, till now.
In Hawaii “slippahs” are how they refer to flip-flops (now, what do we call flip-flops in Malta?)