DCHP-2

running shoe ((1)) runner DCHP-2 (November 2016)

• n. — Clothing, usually plural, especially from Quebec, Ontario to Western Canada

  an athletic shoe; sneaker (see Image 1).

  Type: 5. Frequency — The term running shoes or runners for athletic shoes, which are also often worn in non-sports contexts, is a Canadianism from the province of Quebec to British Columbia, where it is contrasted with American sneakers or alternative forms, e.g. tennis shoes (Berger 2005). In Atlantic Canada, the preferred term is sneakers, like the dominant American form (see Chart 1, where New Brunswick stands for Atlantic Canada and the American regions are on the right). Boberg (2010: 175) speaks in this context of three dialect regions: Western Canada (British Columbia to northwestern Ontario), where runners dominates, Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec), where running shoes is dominant, and Atlantic Canada, where sneakers is the majority form and "virtually excludes the Canadian variants, reaching 95 percent of responses in Nova Scotia" (ibid).
  

  See also: runner ((1)) (def. 1a)