When I was a boy growing up in Detroit, Michigan USA (during the 60s & 70s) any boy wearing white sox along with any clothing besides gym shorts was teased and said to be wearing “herbies.”
If this wasn’t exclusive to my school/ neighborhood perhaps someone can answer the question why “herbies?”
Maybe it was a reference to the white paint job on Herbie, the Love Bug?
Never heard that reference before, and I have no idea where it could have originated.
For the record: my current socks are Looney Tunes “Tasmanian Devil” socks.
I was a boy growing up in the greater Metro Detroit area (the suburbs, in other words, not the city of Detroit) in the same time period, and I never heard this term. I also don’t remember I or anybody else being teased for wearing white socks with anything but gym shorts.
I grew up in that same era, more or less, though in Illinois and Wisconsin, and I never heard that term used in that way, nor do I recall anyone ever being teased for wearing white socks outside of gym class. I suspect it may have been unique to the OP’s school.
FWIW, white crew socks were my default casual socks for decades, until I discovered Bombas. I’m currently wearing a pair of dark green Bombas socks.
Never heard of the term “herbie”.
At my school, it wasn’t that you were wearing white socks. It was that you were wearing “high-water” pants, that were too short to cover the socks.
In general, the idea was that the color of the socks was supposed to match either the trousers or the shoes. White socks with non-white shoes meant that your parents were poor.
White socks were a symbol of nerdery when I was in elementary school in the 60s, and it did stand out with the school clothes and shoes required at the time. Later in life I started wearing white gym socks almost exclusively for simplicity, but also with sneakers, usually white ones, which makes it all a different kind of thing now.
Well, the slang term had to start somewhere.
I lived in Flint and Livonia (right next to Detroit) from 1964-1971 and never heard the term “Herbie”. White socks in regular shoes were taboo, however.
We called high water pants “floods.”
I always thought it referenced the ultimate nerd comic book character, Herbie Popnecker aka “Herbie The Fat Fury”.
Right. And it was always all right if they were actually athletic socks with sneakers, especially the socks with a colored band at the top.
I do remember the stereotypical nerd was portrayed with white socks, leather shoes, pants no covering the socks, a white button up shirt with a pocket protector, carrying an accordion briefcase type school bag, and of course wearing glasses. Might older brother could have been a model for the style.
Was this just identifying someone as poor or just clueless? There were no poor people in the upscale neighborhoods I lived in during the 60s but I can see the notion repurposed for the status conscious type.
For me growing up in the 90s, tennis shoes (including Converse and sneakers) were the usual shoes, and white socks were fine with them. You also could wear them with boots of any kind. But dress shoes with white socks was seen as kinda bad. Unless you were cool, then it was rebellious.
Another thing I just remembered: My mother did not care one bit if I wore white socks with dark pants and shoes. But when I started making a point of buying white sneakers, Mom really freaked out when I wore them after Labor Day.
Ah! So you are saying you’re aware of the reference?
Heard it from a guy while I was in Basic Training back in 1976, and a couple more times while at a training school at Chanute AFB in Illinois.
I don’t even own a pair of white socks! LOL
I have seen fifties movies, though, where the teens all wore them.
My guess is a variation of Herb: Urban Dictionary: Herb
Though, that cites the infamous 1985 Burger King “Herb” ad campaign as the source, which was 20-ish years after the OP’s childhood.
It does but I believe “Herb / Herbert” was kind of a name for dorks prior to that. I have no cite, however!