Logovore Pick of the Week #1

Starting right now, I will be writing a bit each week about the words, expressions, usages and such that I'll be talking about on the Logovoracious segment of TLD .
Today, I'll be looking at "white-shoe law firms", a phrase much in the news recently. Federal Judge Jay Bybee, notorious memo writer as a member Of the Bush administration Justice Department, is often described as having come from the world of white-shoe law firms. These are broadly defined as firms of high status and long history, the legal world's equivalent of the Fortune 500. Having been born, bred and buttered in the upscale suburbs of new York City, where these people congregate, I've been rubbing elbows with them for decades, but I rarely see them in white shoes, except the ones they wear for exercize. (What ever happened to "sneakers", by the way?) Turns out, the white shoes construction is a hoary old anti-WASP slur referring to the red-soled white bucks worn by men of the Ivy League during their leisure season at places like Newport and Saratoga at the turn of the 20th century. Its application has broadened over time to include first Jews of similar economic status, and now anyone who is a partner in one of these firms, or of banking and financial firms of similar stratospheric status. It has also become somewhat less perjorative (though considering who these people are and why they've been in the news, that could change).
What surprises me most about this is that the shoes in question are white bucks. For those of you who have never seen them, white bucks are suede oxfords, which traditionally had soles of hard, ox-blood colored leather. In the 1950s, Pat Boone favored them, and they enjoyed some popularity among preppies into the '60s, mostly in the form of Hush Puppies, which had white rubber soles and could therefore be worn on the deck of one's yacht without fear of marring the varnish. I owned a few pairs myself when I was in high school, because they were part of our marching band uniform. They were reasonably comfortalbe for hard shoes, but easily scuffed and fiendishly difficult to keep clean. Though I suppose if one has a valet, that would not present a problem. Hmmm. Maybe I'm not so surprised after all.