My shoes can't think; how can they be sensible?
Recently as some of us were getting ready to take a walk through the snow, somebody said to me "you're wearing sensible shoes". Now my shoes haven't developed cognitive abilities so far as I know (and I spend enough time with them that I think I would notice), but everyone there knew what this means. It's a common phrase in my experience, but it got me wondering. The adjective sensible here, while syntactically bound to the noun shoes, really applies to another noun in the sentence instead. Is there a term for this sort of modifier migration, or is this sentence technically ungrammatical?
I checked dictionary.com for alternate or obscure meanings of sensible but found none, and a Google search on the phrase turned up uses but no explanations. I also don't think this construct is limited to this particular phrase, but I don't have any more clever ideas.
Solution 1:
An adjective modifying the "wrong" word in a sentence is known as a transferred epithet. This can be used for poetic or humourous effect, or, as in this case, the epithet may have become so strongly associated with the noun that it has no particular literary effect on the listener.
A simple example is "I spent a sleepless night" (it is I who was sleepless, not the night). My English teacher was rather fond of "a schoolboy once again in shivering shorts" from John Betjeman's Original Sin on the Sussex Coast. Of course, the schoolboy is shivering, not his shorts.
Wikipedia has a brief entry on the more general hypallage. I have rarely heard this term used in reference to English grammar or literature.
As noted by other answerers sensible shoes in particular has jumped the chasm from literary device to creating an alternative accepted meaning of sensible. Another example of such a jump is curious, as in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Solution 2:
The OALD lists sensible to mean useful rather than fashionable when referring to things like clothes. The CALD also lists sensible to mean practical rather than being attractive.
Solution 3:
Of course sensible has a meaning "Characterized more by usefulness or practicality than by fashionableness, especially of clothing". Etymonline says, regarding sensible:
Of clothes, shoes, etc., "practical rather than fashionable" it is attested from 1855.
But note that terms like "sensible walking shoes" were in use already in the 1820's:
...oot wi' such daft-like things in such weather; they're liker dancin' schule pumps than sensible walkin' shoes. (The Inheritance, Susan Ferrier, 1825)
There's a very slight possibility that the term sensible shoes may have some relation to horseshoeing. Beginning in the early 1800's, sensible frequently appears in agricultural publications about horseshoes:
...with common shoes there is no pressure tracts, ... The artificial frog, which is intended to the sensible frog, without any respite, must receive cover... (The Complete Farmer, 1807)
...it has some defects in common with other shoes. It is attached with nails, and these nails may pinch the sensible parts within... (Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, 1831)
Solution 4:
I don't think it's an unusual construction at all: would you think a clever idea had out-thought the originator, or a stupid joke likely to be teased by the other figures of speech? Quite a few adjectives can be applied either to the originator or the result: whether it's "the same meaning" may depend on your definitions.
Solution 5:
It's not the shoes that are sensible.
Rather, "You have made a sensible choice in electing to wear this particular pair of shoes on this given occasion."
Your interlocutor simply cuts to the chase and states:
"You're wearing sensible shoes."
But the above meaning is implied. Humans are like that. They rely on a high degree of context to communicate meaning.