This is Planet Money from NPR.

A while back, I found out about this kind of odd confrontation playing out in the courts

that I just could not resist digging into.

The case was focused on a particular kind of footwear that a lot of people seem to love

and a lot of other people love to hate on.

Eddie Oigher, the Australian businessman at the center of this legal case, he falls

somewhere between those two camps.

It's a sheepskin boot for God's sake.

They are ugly if you really look at them.

That's why they're called ugly.

That's right, this story is all about uggs, which if you haven't seen these boots, they're

usually about calf-high, sort of swayed on the outside, woolly on the inside.

And Eddie runs a leather goods business out of Sydney, Australia.

Been in the game for over 40 years.

In addition to leather jackets and earmuffs, Eddie makes his daily bread from selling what

he calls ug boots.

And I didn't understand this kind of key thing about these boots until Eddie explained

it to me.

Any footwear that's made from sheepskin and has fur on it, in Australia, it's called

ug.

This kind of blew my mind.

For Australians, ug is not just a particular brand of boot.

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