Handicraft shoemaking in English is an old tree wrapped thick with the strangling vines of jargon. There are competing, divergent, conflicting, overloaded, and redundant terms at every branch and limb, snaring and scratching any learner who begins to climb.
In writing the initial entries for this site, I have often had to pick a particular name from several possible as the main title for an entry, marking others as synonyms. Browsing to a page for a synonym redirects to the page for my chosen term, as Heel Stiffener redirects to Heel Counter.
By every choice of main entry title, I mean to just one thing: I’m starting off writing all the entries, and that was the term that came easiest to me when I picked it.
Having started a number of entries now, I’m even more concerned about jargon’s effect on the liveliness of old-school shoemaking.
A last is just a mold. A welt is just a belt. A feather is just a rim. There are far simpler, commoner English terms for many even fairly well understood shoemaking terms, completely understandable to newbies without explanation.
Still, I’m not yet ready to completely toss the lingo. There are just enough terms, especially for the most common concepts, with just enough evidence of consistent usage to earn keep. Many of the scant sources we have don’t make any sense without other experience reading the code.
So the lingo is also something to be preserved, if not worshiped. Anyway, it ought to be explained, and explained plainly. On that I do take a position. Hopefully it shows in the work I’ve published here.
Kyle E. Mitchell