in Anu's post, he mentions the term pad (from the dutch for path) as shairing a root with other words (tread, etc)

here in NYC if you walk around indoors barefoot, or with only socks on, you are padding..(around the house)

is this use common else where? or is it another sneeky little dutch word that is part of the NYC/NYS lexicon?

(i always pad around the house.)

We pad about the pad here too, Helen, but not about the paddock. I have it on good authority that they do it in Padua as well as in Paducah.

Our Irish cat, Paddie, pads about the pad on his pads.

If you think I am padding this, you are absolutely correct. You get a pad on the back.

Padding around means shoeless here - but not necessarily barefoot, you can be in socks.

I've always associated 'padding around' with (relatively) noiseless steps and assumed it came from 'pad' for animal paws.
So theoretically it would be possible to pad around in ballet slippers or the equivalent, which I guess is why Bel thinks (like me) that you can wear socks and still pad.

...irrelevant thought from association with sneaking up on prey / padding around silently like a thief / socks vs bare feet: - are toeprints as unique as fingerprints? I would assume so. Have they ever been used in crime suspect identification?

I’ve never heard the word ‘pad’ used in that sense. Here, one ‘walks around the house barefooted’. If one is wearing socks, one ‘walks around the house in a pair of socks’.

No syllable conservationists, we – at least when it comes to footwear (or the lack thereof) when ambulating in the domicile.

i included socks --shoelessness/soft walking, is the essence of padding..

and i checked some dictionaries.. the american ones all had one meaning of padding as 'walking softly, or shoeless, indoors' but not all the UK ones did..

i wonder if its a dutch term that has spread up and down the east coast, (like stoops--which exist in boston and baltimore) or if its english and just fallen out of favor (like fall, the season) and lives on in the americas.

i suspect toe print are as unique as fingerprints.. babies are regularly 'foot printed' in hospitals as means of identity. the lines and wrinkles of their tiny feet are each unique. (and i think there was a CSI show that utilized toe prints too.. )

like stoops--which exist in boston and baltimore

Oddly enough, I have heard the word ‘stoop’ used somewhere around here – not very often, though. Of course, the word commonly used in these parts is, ‘steps’.

D there are 8 million or so NYCer's now, and we have been losing population for the past 20 years.. they must have gone somewhere! no doubt is is just one of the dispora of NYers you heard.

stoop--is just a dutch word for steps (a few steps, a staircase is (or was) trap--and in NYC area, 'stepped granite' (like the famous devils staircase in northern island) is called 'trap rock' --the western edge of the hudson (ie, the NJ side) has miles of it. not a pretty at the devils staircase--(i don't think it ever was) but its also been mined --up until the 1930's or so.

NYC retains a lot of ducth terms that have come into everyday speach, and many dutch place names.. but the dutha are appalled at how we mangle the names with our english pronounciations. (there was a thread... )

Don't forget pitty-pat.

I just say "going barefoot" - I, too, would use "padding" to mean "walking silently". If I have my socks on, I refer to it as being "in sock feet" or "stocking feet" - as in "would you get another log, sweetie, I'm in sock feet". My cats, of course, are always padding around in their stalking feet....

STOOP - We use this term to mean the tiny landing at the top of the stairs in front of the door. You usually sit on the stoop taking in the goings-on on the street.

Elizabeth, maybe it's the French seeping over to you In French, we say walking around in sock-feet too when you walk around in socks alone.

maybe it's the French seeping over to you

Oh, no doubt. I love being sesquilingual, and frequently use French phrases like "pas de probleme" and "Que faites-tu?" when I'm talking to my husband - who knows far less French than even my half-assed accomplishment, but "gets it" from context.

pas de probleme

Ha! You are a Frenchy Elizabeth, you'd fit right in here...."No problem" - that's our unofficial motto.

trap

Now that's one I've never heard!

Thanks, H!

check out Engrish.com (a site full of mostly japanese mangled english..)

on left menu, click on Signs and Posters..

to to LAST, and then Previous--(penultimate page)
to get to "Pictures 177 to 192 of 195"

scroll down to the bottom of the page.

the first europian language dictionary in japan was a Dutch/Japanese one.. Later they realized Dutch was not the most widely spoken language in the world, (just happened that Dutch had made inroads into that part of asia!)

Trap--as a synonym for staircase/stepping stones was apparently not unknown in english.(at some point in the past) and the japanese still use Trap occationally.

"Emergency Trap"--ha; didn't look like a step to me. I've never heard trap for step; I guess not as many Dutch settled in KY as they did north and east of here. I like the term 'trap rock', though; it has kind of a ring to it.

In north New England it's barefoot for bare feet and padding for wearing just sox. I wonder if the passing comes partly from the fact that your feet are padded by the sox?
And paddding around has a sort of aimless quality to the phrase or sometimes a sneaky element depending on how it's used!
Confusing, wot?

In Britland we say 'barefoot' or 'in stockinged feet'. No commonly used cute expression for either that I am aware of. Padding around would simply imply silence and probably stealth - to me anyway.

(If I ever go without shoes, even indoors, the result is usually highly painful ~ Johnny Head-in-air.)

The common feature of most examples of the word pad seems to be a sense of cushioning, as traced in some of the examples at etymonline:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p

(though I note that Bartleby gives a slightly different etymology for the pad component of footpad to that offered in the first site, tracing it to words meaning path more directly:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE394.html)

From mav's Bartleby link:
b. pad2; footpad, from Middle Dutch pad, way, path.
Hmm--is this why foot Dr.'s are podiatrists?

It's more likely that the Dutch pad derives from the same root as podiatrist. Pod is ancient Greek for foot, and gave us such terms as pododerm (hoof) and podium. No relationship to podex.