Most of us will remember those black rubber-soled canvas trainers that you wore in primary school PE classes, but it might surprise you to learn that what you called them isn't what everybody else did.

I called them 'plimsolls', as do most people in south eastern England and the East Midlands, with usage of the word peaking in Norfolk, where 91% use the term. But in North West England and the West Midlands, they are normally called 'pumps', while many in the West Country and South Wales refer to them as 'daps'.

Scotland has a wide range of terms for the school hall trainer, including sandshoes (25% of Scots use), gym shoes (23%) and gutties (9%).

Find where people use the same term you did for school canvas trainers here: https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52768-plimsolls-pumps-or-something-else-what-do-britons-call-school-canvas-trainers

Tools: PowerPoint, Datawrapper

Posted by YouGov_Dylan

29 comments

  3. When I was in School, 1970’s. Lancashire was Pumps, Gloucestershire was Daps.

  4. Explains why for us in Solihull it was both Pumps and Plimsolls depending on who said the word

  5. In Scotland they also they also call hunting knives and broken bottles “gutties”.

  6. Gym shoes is the only thing I understand here.

    School canvas trainers? Seems like too many words to still cause confusion.

  7. Naming things is always controversial in Northern Ireland, understandable for that to have been left off this survey.

    EDIT: for the record, this is a joke, I have zero idea of whether or not there is an actual ethno-religious-political divide over the naming of canvas trainers in Northern Ireland. 

  8. My dad was from Somerset and called them daps. With a heavy lean on the A.

  10. I do enjoy when doing a YouGov survey you can tell when they’ve stuck a question on the end to settle a debate in the office. 20 questions on who you’re going to vote for, then ‘name this random object’.

  11. Jesus. Orkney and Shetland are a fucking confused lot.

  12. It’s fun to see that this is a hangon for regional dialect, since so many older words have fallen out of use entirely in favour of a standard term.

    I like how Scotland gets a callout for having the most terms. I grew up in *gutties* country and probably would use gutties and gym shoes interchangably. I recognise the word plimsolls because that’s probably how they were marketed in shops. Strangely I’ve never heard of sandshoes or sannies even though it’s popular.

  13. That’s interesting. I only remember hearing about them once, as sandshoes, on doctor who. Makes me wonder why they chose to call them sandshoes in the script/show.

  14. I feel like it would have been worth trying to include northern irrland. Especially if you’re going to include Shetland and Orkney isles.

    Might as well go for all the British isles and include Ireland, mann, Scilly and possibly even jersey and guernsey.

  15. We call them “Punnet o’ squares” down Wartington Common way

  17. As a Canadian I’m increasingly of the opinion that England doesn’t actually speak English.

    Note: the rest of the UK as well, but they have their own languages so it’s understandable.

  18. Map is wrong as far as Gloucestershire is concerned.

  21. From East Yorkshire, school in 80’s. never ever heard sandshoes. always plimsoles or plimmys.

  22. Very cool. I’ve heard sand shoes in Australia, but also tennis shoes or volleys

  23. Doesn’t match my knowledge of the East of Scotland areas, but probably not worth losing sleep over.

    (I also only knew the spelling as ‘plimsole’, although apparently plimsoll is the OG spelling.)

  24. Apart from kelvinside, morningside , bearsden who has called them plimsoll’s

  26. This map is so wrong!

    According to this people in Dundee would call Sannies “plimsolls” , I’ve never heard them called that ever, In Dundee 🙄

  28. Gutties in Stirling where I went to school. But why gutties?

  29. I went to school in North East Scotland and we called them pumps which according to this map is only a thing in S.W England

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