When did the term "flip flop" displace the term "thong" in North America for a type of sandal?

Question

To Australians like me "thong" means a kind of sandal such as recently repopularized by the Havaianas brand but we know it means a kind of G-string in other English-speaking parts of the world.

To most English-speaking people in the 21st century it seems "flip flop" (or "flip-flop") is the term for the sandal-like footwear.

But several times I've come across suggestions that "thong" used to be used for this kind of sandal in North America.

• I'm pretty sure I came across it in the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, written in 1960s New Orleans. But perhaps it was in another American novel from that era.

• There's this comment on the talk page of the Wiktionary "thong" entry:

  Note: Usage in U.S., particulary Southern California. (Prior to 1980's, perhaps later). Thong is exclusively footware (sandal), not related to undergarments or bathing suits. The usage of thong as G-string (bathing suit or underwear) is post 1980's?

• Etymonline states that flip-flop meant "thong sandal," by 1972; but for thong states:

  As a kind of sandal, first attested 1965; as a kind of bikini briefs, 1990.

As an amateur etymologist and lexicographer I'm very interested to know:

• During which years and which parts of North America were flip flops called thongs?
• Does anybody still call them thongs anywhere in North America?
• Did flip flops only replace thongs due to the latter term picking up the new sense of G string around the 1980s / 1990s?

Or to put it in a single question, What is the history of the term thong as a kind of sandal in North American English?

Answer 1

I grew up in New York (born in Nov 1968) and when I was a child they were called "thongs". In the very late 70s my family moved to Seattle and there they were also called "Thongs". I only became aware of the term "flip-flops" in the late 80s and found it humorous that a g-string would be called a "thong". (I can still recall my adolescent thoughts regarding the idea of comparing butt-cheeks with toes :)

I now live in Germany, so I may be a bit out of touch with some of the current trends.

I find it interesting that "young people" in America today giggle when we "old people" call them "thongs" and they need to "correct" us.

Answer 2

I grew up in the Seattle area, 1960s-1970s, and we always called the rubber sandals thongs. I moved to Boston in 1987, and they were called flip-flops, there. When I returned to Seattle in '92, I started hearing flip-flop, and now I never say thong other than around family members who know what I'm talking about.

Answer 3

In the 1960s and early 1970s in the New York metropolitan area, people did refer to the shoes as thongs. It was from the early to mid-1970s that the transition to the term "flip-flops" started to take hold, with thong becoming the term for a bikini bottom with minimal covering over the derrière area.

Answer 4

I grew up in Los Angeles in the '80s and we referred to them as thongs. My experience is that flip-flops displaced the word thongs when the underwear became popular in the '90s.

Answer 5

Thong is still used. So is flip flop and sometimes just sandal. We know that.

Thong has been used less because when we hear the word (at least in my part of America) we think underwear not sandals. So I believe the term flip-flop is just more accurate from a marketing point of view. If I am paying big bucks to market my new sandal line, I don't want some of my market base thinking I am pushing underwear. And then through all of the advertising the common term we use changes.

Answer 6

According to the Random House Dictionary, the word thong has occupied a place in English since the year 950.

It is speculated that the Old Norse word thvengr found its way into Middle English and Old English as thwong. Thwong meant "strap".

For several centuries, and continuing to this day, thong has meant a strip of material, especially of leather or hide. This may be used to fasten or secure something, or for whipping.

Or indeed, a shoe or slipper fastened to the foot chiefly by a strip of leather or other material passing between the first and second toes.

Thong in the sense of footwear is a fairly broad category. The use of the word thong in this sense was already attested in 1965.

I beg to differ with folks who have commented that the footwear under question was always called "flip flops" in the UK and always called thongs in Australia.

With all due respect to the Australians, they have had very little to contribute to the development of English language (this is not a slam...I think it is congruent with the relatively short history of the country). As with most words, they carried over the word thong from home (UK).

The term flip-flop has been used in American and British English since circa 1972 to describe the thong. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=flip-flop

It is an onomatopoeia and is derived from the sound that is made by walking in them.

The use of the word thong to refer to a kind of bikini brief is very recent....and dates back to just the 1990s. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=thong&searchmode=term

Back to the question, thong is now used mainly to refer to the bikini bottoms in America, thanks to the promotion of this usage in media. However, there are small patches of California, where it is occasionally still used to refer to the footwear (though not exclusively to refer to footwear) Samples: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/20/entertainment/et-stylenotebook20 Santa Cruz thong

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/21/entertainment/et-shawn21 One was the soft, thwick-thwack of thong sandals slapping bare feet.

Answer 7

From an older Jamaican, now a UK resident: (1). Thong because it looks like a strip of leather (a thong) from the sole and up between the toes before splitting into the 'V' shape. Likewise the lower half of a bikini looks like just a thin piece of 'material' (thong-like) and not an all embracing fabric to co cover the female 'frontage' and nowhere near enough to cover the derriere.

(2). Noisy flip-flops were bad enough... and I'm sure some people wore them to say, "Notice me!" Here in the UK, saw a 2" high 'heeled' version being worn by a woman which made a variation of the same old din.

Answer 8

I would love to add to this thread as a Canadian I grew up on the west coast and only ever knew the term thong for the rubber sandal type thing everyone is describing, g-string for underwear.

I left for Australia in 1999 where the same footwear was called a thong. However, I have returned to Canada after 13 years away to discover that my lifelong friends choke when I say I'm wearing my thongs today. Most of them can't even remember the term thong for footwear (which I find bizarre) but there are a handful of people who do remember -and this has kept me hopeful that I'm not losing my mind! Lol

I don't like the sound of "flip flop" I think it sounds ridiculous so I continue to use thong as it always was used and STILL is used in the sane parts of the world!! People gasp, stare wide eyed the teenagers laugh... Good on them, they can use flippity floppety to describe their shoes, I'm not a sheep :-)