When Sarah, of Yorktown, Virginia, moved to Santa Cruz, California, in her teens, she was intrigued by skateboard slang, particularly the use of the word barge to indicate “a challenging feat” or “a long distance.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Barge, a Bit of Older Santa Cruz Slang”
Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Sarah and I am from Yorktown, Virginia.
Welcome. What can we do for you? So years ago, I moved from Yorktown, Virginia to Santa Cruz, California. I was 14, so I was pretty young. The most memorable thing about moving out there was the language and how different it was. Hearing all their slang words was like the coolest thing for me. But the word that is stuck with me is barge.
So this word was used like when people would go skate for a long distance or go on a really far bike ride or go from one party to the next, a really far travel. And they would say, man, that was such a barge. Or we just barged across town or something along those lines. I don’t know barge very much.
It comes up in a couple lists of Santa Cruz slang. One list from 2013 and another from 2017. They basically define it like you do to mean a long distance or a large distance. There is in a list of slang from UCLA from 2009 put together by the Department of Linguistics there. To barge it means to go quickly. I wonder if that’s related. And then there’s a snowboarding dictionary that has barge, which is glossed as going for it with all you’ve got.
And all of these vaguely feel related to me because they’re all about doing what it takes to just to pass through this this obstacle. You know, a large distance. You’re going to ride the board to go the distance or ride the bike to go the distance. I don’t know.
So you think it’s definitely like more just like slang kind of terminology? Yeah, I think it might come from the board sports, actually. I don’t know enough about it. And frankly, some of the slang is so ephemeral, it just lasts for a little while and disappears. My first instinct with barge, though, would be other barge slang. Barge meaning a large vehicle, like not a boat, but a car. The giant Cadillacs, you know, the big sedans from the 80s. You know, the ones that you inherit from your grandparents that have a little life left in them. And you and your teen friends pile in with your skateboards and your gear and your whatever stuff you need to go to the beach. Your coolers and your dogs and whatever. And that’s your barge, you know.
My husband had one. He’s from Santa Cruz. And he had exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah. It’s like driving a building. A building with wheels. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. It was a pleasure. And I look forward to calling again with many more questions that I have.
Oh, yeah. Do share. We’d love to hear more about Santa Cruz as a 14-year-old. That must have been an amazing time for you. Beach culture. Oh, we could spend hours on the phone. I have stories for days.
Call us again. All right. Be well. Take care. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.
You know, something tells me we have lots of listeners who have lots of stories about exactly that kind of thing. That big, long road trip that your family took when you were younger and you encountered different foods or different language, we’d love to hear about it. Call us 877-929-9673 or send those stories to words@waywordradio.org.
