When I was growing up, thongs were the semi-sandals that you wore on your feet, pictured to the right. Nowadays, they’re called “flipflops” and if you call them “thongs” in public, you get sharp looks and people think you’re having a stroke when you try to explain what you were talking about.
Sigh. The times, they are a-changin’.
Just call them slippers like they do in Hawaii and then a Haole will have no clue what you are talking about 🙂
I haven’t seen thong used for sandals in a long time. But it was funny that I came across this web ad today for the "Ultimate Thong":
http://www.paddling.net/Banners/teva6.gif
That’s good. I also noticed there’s a lot of these on Amazon that still have "thong" in the name.
Technically they are ‘toe-post sandals,’ and there are many many models of them.