This Is the Incredibly Stupid Basis for Shoe Sizes

I’d start off with the classic “ever wonder why shoe sizes are so weird,” except that I don’t think most people do anymore. Maybe when they were younger, first trying to understand a Brannock device in the midst of constantly changing foot size, it was frustrating. By adulthood, though, it’s just something we’ve internalized as stupid and moved on from, knowing that we’re a size 12 and it’s not worth pursuing further. After all, living in America means every day is packed with antiquated, less-than-sensible measurements, so why should that change for our feet?

If you do still harbor some curiosity as to the system sizing our shoes, I have the answer here, and it’s even dumber than you’d expect. It turns out that the number that corresponds to your particular foot is expressed in multiples of the size of a single kernel of barleycorn. 

Now, it’s not like they plucked this from thin air specifically for feet. The barleycorn was a measurement that had been around for thousands of years, and the size of one was definitely a little more front-of-mind in agrarian societies. None of that, though, explains why we still use it.

It was a standardized measurement, and not one disconnected from those we still use: a barleycorn is one-third of an inch. 

So is that it then, done-and-dusted? Your shoe size is x amount of barleycorns? 

As those of you with size 12 feet realizing your foot is definitely more than 4 inches long may have realized, of course not. That would be too simple.

Instead, the switch between adult and children’s sizes, and the old measurement known as a “hand,” are all in the pot making up this unintelligible stew. Shoe sizes start, for children, at 4 inches, or one “hand.” They then increase by our old friend the barleycorn, up to 13. Past 13, adult sizes begin all over again at 1. 

Complicated, sure, but how else are you going to figure out what Nikes you fit into, if not summoning the length of ancient grains?