Posted on 07/31/2022 7:11:02 AM PDT by aquila48
It’s a thorny issue that can cause heated debate but, like so many things in Britain, social standing made it even more complicated.
To be fair, the debate was sparked by my uncle. “I am perplexed,” he emailed me a couple of months ago, “by tradesmen who are determined to take their perfectly clean boots off before entering a lived-in, dog-strewn house like ours. And yesterday, a friend who lives in an even scruffier and doggier house apologised for having his clean, dry gumboots on when he called, having been making a bonfire at home. Keep them on I say, and have a run around with the Dyson afterwards.”
I decided to mention this “shoes on or shoes off” question in my Sunday Telegraph column. Have we become more of a shoes-off nation since the pandemic, I wondered, because we’re now so wimpy about germs?
A lively, six-week correspondence kicked off on the letters page. Some pointed out that removing shoes was a matter of respect, not just hygiene. One lady said that the shoes-off-at-the-door rule meant she knew which of her children were in the house when she returned from work.
Another insisted that, since socks and stockings are sold in the hosiery department, asking guests to remove their shoes and reveal them was “on a par with expecting them to remove their shirts and blouses and sit around in their underwear”. (Hard to fault the logic.) Jennie from Cheltenham wrote that she’d once lived in Borneo where removing shoes is the custom, but this caused havoc at a dinner party after her puppy scattered 30 pairs of shoes in the garden.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I suppose being respectful or polite escaped these folks?
Or maybe that alleged cry of ‘follow the science’ that these idiots continually say they follow and spew has just jumped out a 1000 story window?
‘Scientists Discover Why You Should Take Off Your Shoes Before Entering Your Home’
https://www.lifehack.org/317735/scientists-discover-why-you-should-take-off-your-shoes-before-entering-your-home
Just saying....
My wife is Chinese. Wearing shoes in the house better not even cross your mind. She’ll know.
Wash your feet.
My wife doesn’t ask, but the shoe rack and stool at the door speak volumes.
“scientists” can discover whatever you want that you pay for.
If in doubt, ask your host/hostess.
Use of a public restroom, walking in the street.......take your shoes off at the door. Recall the episode of the Sopranos.
Aside my sarcastic comment before, Shoes on or off is not a Covid crap problem, it is a sign of respect for the owner of the house with cultural conditions or not. There are times and events that wearing shoes in the house are allowed if clean, but your taking your shoes off or using a cover otherwise. Usually the only aholes who are rich or those don’t respect you stomp dirty shoes around the house. I can make exceptions for police but I have not needed to.
Don’t tell me, tell them........................
On. My dogs track in more from the outside than I do. And I have tile floors. But mostly, when growing up, no one we knew would ever take shoes off when entering a home. After all, most of us owned cars and lived in neighborhoods with sidewalks.
My wife is a Filipina. She never takes her shoes off when entering, assuming the shoes are not muddy. Of all the people I know, only one USED to ask guests to take shoes off when entering. They finally gave up asking.
The feet of most people are nastier than the bottom of shoes. There is a reason people often wear flip-flops using a shower in the gym....
If you live on a few acres its only prudent to avoid tracking in dirt, etc.
It’s common practice in Alaska.
“What about those from say, Japan. Is that a middle class thing?”
Everybody here in Japan removes their shoes and uses slippers and that goes for guests , workman and whoever enters someone’s home .
We just limit the number of people that can actually enter our house. ;-D
If I show up at the house barefoot, do I have to put shoes on to go in?
Shoes off. Why bring in to your house all the dirt and whatever on the bottom of your shoes collected while outside?
In Alaska in winter that’s what we did. Snow. Mud. Practical.
Canadians take shoes off. It has to do with ice and mud. My wife pointed out that when we lived in northern Illinois, ahich also has ice and mud, but no show removal, that radio ads for carpet cleaning and carpet replacement were ubiquitous.
It is not a class thing in Canada, either. I was expected to remove my shoes in trailer parks.
“Wife is Taiwanese. We do not wear shoes in the house.”
Daughter in law is Taiwanese. Same here. Besides, I am dirt averse.
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