Sanuk’s top 3 Cutest Woman Sandals around [title]Where did the word flip flops originate at?[/title]
The sound of the sandal while walking certainly had a hand in the naming of it as a flip flop. The earliest documented mention of a variation of the word can be found in the nineteen century where in 1861 in a letter to the editor to the New York Times it is mentioned as ‘flip-flap.’ The writer mentions ‘flip flap’ shoes in a derogatory manner regarding the way the troops of the Seventh Regiment Volunteers were dressed up. Later in the same letter the writer also says that the men ‘still march flip flop.’
Of course public memory cannot be that long that it remembered one line in the New York Times a hundred years later when the flip flops really became famous. Every generation has a group of advertising executives out to give a super name to a new product. They are always looking for words that will stick in the mind. Perhaps it was just a word of mouth thing. Who knows? One thing is certain that the sandals certainly inspired the naming of the slippers. Sit down and listen to a person approaching wearing the rubber slippers, they will make an audible sound which sounds like Flip then Flop. There you have it the slippers actually named themselves. They talked to us and told us ‘My Name ith Flith Floth.’ Of course Flith Floth was not acceptable and it was changed to Flip Flop.
The precise moment of the naming or the year of naming can be worked out by finding out when the slim rubber versions were made. New Zealanders have been wearing Japanese flip flops called Zoris since the 1930s. These were traditional Japanese sandals which were made popular by soldiers coming home after the Second World War who carried them along to their various homelands. The original Zoris were not long lasting. Two New Zealanders claim credit for creating the first flip flops. They are Morris Yock who patented it in 1957 and the Cowie family which claims their father who had a flip flop factory in Hong Kong invented the flip flop.
Flip flops are known by various names in various countries and these names include, Zori, Jandal, thongs, Plakkies, slip slops or slops, chinelo, sandalia, tsinelas, sayonares, Havaianas, or simple slippers.
The evidence collected points to the United States which has the casual ease of naming a spade a spade. So when the slippers made from rubber started talking a group of Americans heard it and recognised it as a visit from the planet of Flip Flop. That is how the Flip Flops came to be named, by ear. The slippers named themselves and the listeners believed and passed the word that, ‘the flip flop is here to stay’. Thanks to some of the great companies like Reef and Sanuk making amazing beach sandals like the
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Sanuk Hemp Sidewalk Surfers and also the
Sanuk Shore Leave Sidewalk Surfers.