Essays of E. B. White | 
There‘s been a few #weirdwords sprinkled throughout White‘s essays, but a recent one that I never heard before was the phrase “shoe hockeys.” I tried searching the term but it was unproductive. I‘m thinking he‘s either describing skates that you attach to the bottoms of shoes or, as he mentions later in the paragraph, a pair of skates. Anyone else heard this phrase before? Is it a retronym? @dabbe
#weirdwordWednesdays @CBee
dabbe Good question! I tried to research too, and the best I can see are in the “olden“ days, kids could put blades under their shoes. This has to be before official hockey skates. And I'd say yes to the retronym because hockey skates differ from skates, which differ from shoes on skates. Am I making any sense? I've only had 1 cup of coffee, so maybe not. 😂 3mo
psalva @dabbe That makes perfect sense. It‘s interesting because the essay this is from was written in 1958- admittedly I didn‘t check when modern hockey skates were invented but it seems late to me somehow. That‘s what made me think of the retronym :) words are twisty sometimes! 3mo
CBee @dabbe that makes sense to me 😁 @psalva 3mo
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