Sunday, February 1, 2009

Lined with a Sherpa?

While clipping coupons from the Sunday Post not long ago, I came across an ad for "sherpa-lined gloves." I've done some research since then, and I've found dozens of products lined with "sherpa."

Maybe I'm grossly misinformed, but isn't a sherpa a Tibetan mountain-climber in the Nepalese Himalayas? Don't they help carry things for people who are trying to cross mountain passes? We nicknamed a tough girl "the sherpa" on our canoe trip this summer.

The thought of one of those poor people lining a glove is more than a little disturbing. And I feel really, really bad that I can't stop laughing at the mental image.

4 comments:

Rebecca said...

So what is "sherpa-lined"?

Rachel said...

It looks like some sort of soft wool. I've only known Sherpas as the mountain guides though. So strange.

Anna said...

I'm there with you Rachie...I always thought a Sherpa was a person as well. Weird.

amt317 said...

I'd never heard of the word before Cabela's started promoting sherpa-lined merchandise, at which point I assumed it was some new breed of llama-esque animal, something along the lines of an alpaca. According to the World's Most Reliable Source, there are a ton of uses for the word "sherpa" and none of them have anything to do with wool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_(disambiguation)