I’ve always struggled with calling barefoot shoes, barefoot shoes. Especially in print. It’s fine when you’re simply referring to the shoes themselves and you can add “running” in the middle to make “barefoot running shoes” to differentiate them from barefoot shoes that aren’t designed for running. The irony there being that actually any shoe designed to confirm to a barefoot shoe style can be used for running. The difference being in form and not function, so mainly it’s a fashion thing. Anyway, I digress.
The problem comes when talking about “Barefoot Running”, and then trying to differentiate between doing this activity actually barefoot, and doing it wearing barefoot running shoes. My own lexical solution to this is simple. Barefoot Shoes should really be called “Bareshoes”. This works on two levels as Barefoot Shoes are by their very nature minimal and thus the bare minimum of a shoe. Plus it emphasises the barefoot running style that these shoes promote. It gets better too. Using this description I can therefore simply refer to “Barefoot Running” and “Bareshoe Running”. I don’t have to explain that I’m “actually barefoot”, or conversely explain to someone who is new to the idea that I’m not actually barefoot I’m using barefoot running shoes.
I think this works, so from now on for my running both barefoot and in barefoot shoes, I’ll call it “Barefoot Running” and “Bareshoe Running” respectively. Got that? Good.