Vocabulary
Sneakers, Trainers or Runners? What You Call Athletic Shoes
North America says sneakers, Britain says trainers, and Ireland says runners — but the American picture is more divided than it looks, with tennis shoes across the South and gym shoes in Chicago. Australia adds joggers to the mix.
The question, as everyone in the survey sees it
What do you call shoes worn for sport or exercise?
Think of the general everyday word, not a particular brand.
- Sneakers
- Trainers
- Tennis shoes
- Runners
- Gym shoes
- Joggers
- Sports shoes
- Something else
Who says what
Each accent profile in the survey has an expected answer to this question. Where a profile allows more than one answer, the region genuinely varies.
Sneakers
Expected in 15 of the survey's accent profiles.
- New York City
- Boston
- Jamaican
- Bajan
- Canadian
- Trinidadian
- African American
- Hawaiian
- Philadelphia
- New Orleans
- Liberian
- Spanish-accented English
- Brazilian Portuguese-accented English
- Japanese-accented English
- Mandarin-accented English
Trainers
Expected in 24 of the survey's accent profiles.
- Modern RP
- Bristol
- West Country
- London
- Multicultural London
- Birmingham
- Scouse
- Mancunian
- South Yorkshire
- West Yorkshire
- Geordie
- Central Scottish
- Highland Scottish
- South Wales
- Northern Irish
- New Zealand
- South African
- Ghanaian
- Sri Lankan
- Spanish-accented English
- French-accented English
- German-accented English
- Italian-accented English
- Russian-accented English
Tennis shoes
Expected in 4 of the survey's accent profiles.
Runners
Expected in 7 of the survey's accent profiles.
Something else
Expected in 8 of the survey's accent profiles.
Why this question is in the survey
Vocabulary questions like this one are the fastest way to place a speaker, because the answer is a single conscious word choice rather than a sound people cannot hear in themselves. They also travel: a word that splits England into five regions often splits North America into three quite different ones. Every answer is stored with a coarse map cell for the town you grew up in, and a region is coloured in once at least two people there have answered.
See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.