Bro-Brah Skier Slang

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tenley Thompson calling from Jackson, Wyoming.

That sounds like a lot of fun.

It’s a super fun town.

We’re just outside the national parks and up high in the mountains.

And it’s kind of an outdoor wonderland for sure.

So, guys, I’ve got lots of friends and I’ve been out here in a long time in the valley.

And we have a lingo out here that’s sometimes called bro-bra.

And it’s what skiers and snowboarders and mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts sometimes speak.

And we say a lot of terms that some of which I grew up with and some which I’ve only heard relatively recently that I’m really curious about where they come from.

And the one I’m most curious about is the term send it.

So if a skier or a snowboarder takes a piece of really difficult terrain or if somebody’s trying to challenge them to do it, they’ll say, oh, bro, go send it.

Send that cliff.

Or sick, you sent that man.

And I’m wondering where the term send it comes from.

Why do we say send it when we want somebody to really do something ambitious and take something difficult?

So you’ve been hearing this how long, you think?

Gosh, I know it’s been very popular for at least a decade, but I think it probably goes back at least 15 or 20 years locally.

But I also have been hearing it more and more in other outdoor sports, too.

You’ll definitely hear mountain bikers talk about sending something.

Sometimes you’ll hear it in other sports, but I first heard it with skiers and snowboarders.

Yeah, I think I first encountered it in the mountain biking discussion groups online, but definitely the snowboarding groups, skiing groups, and the climbing groups.

The rock climbing groups, which, by the way, is probably where it’s from.

There’s a climbing dictionary by Matt Samet, S-A-M-E-T,

And he quotes somebody saying they remember it from the mid-1980s.

There’s an article in 5280 magazine out of Denver by Georgia Perry

Where she quotes Samet saying that there’s a video from a 1988 climbing competition

Where you can hear a California climber use the expression,

Which is what lexicographers love.

We love it when you can actually date a term

And actually have proof that it was used,

Not relying just on memory.

So we know then that send it as a verb,

A slang verb meaning go for it,

Dates to at least 1988.

And in his dictionary, his climbing dictionary,

Sam, it says to send is to free climb without falling.

And the noun send is a successful ascent of a climb,

A wall, a mountain, et cetera.

But notice there’s a little difference there.

These days, it’s transitive verbs.

You send it, you send something.

But in the dictionary, as the climbers use it, it was intransitive.

You just send.

Wow, you really send something like that.

Yeah, you either send it or you sent it.

There’s also when you did it afterwards.

That’s so fascinating.

It would make sense.

Do you ever hear someone say something about getting sendy, S-E-N-D-Y?

Yes.

Yes. Or they did a full send. So, yeah, a full send is like if you really did something epic.

So, you know, oh, bro, that was a full send meant you really you took a line that’s never been done before or you really committed to something that took a lot of guts and ambition to go ahead and do.

And all that was a full send. Yeah. And Tenley, what about if I’m Cindy? What am I?

If you’re sendy, you are the kind of person who sends things. So, you know, if you’re describing somebody, you know, I’m a girl in this town and guys outnumber girls quite a bit in Jackson Hole. It’s a very young community. We skew kind of young. I’m in my late 30s.

And if you’re trying to describe somebody as a potential dating prospect, for instance, you might say that they’re sendy, meaning they’re very extreme and their ambition in sports.

They’re sendy, meaning like they’re willing to send a big cliff or they take the most difficult terrain and they’re kind of an extreme athlete.

They’re sendy.

Oh, that’s excellent.

Thank you for fleshing that out.

You know, it’s one thing to read about these terms in my reference works.

It’s another thing to hear them from someone who is on the ground and hears them from her peers on a day-to-day basis.

This is excellent.

Well, this is so exciting because so many of these terms, I just wonder where they came from.

And this is so cool to hear about.

One of the theories that I don’t really buy into, but I’m going to relay here, is that the send, the original send in climbing, meaning to go for it or to really climb that mountain, dude, might come from the Elvis Presley song, Return to Cinder.

Because by scrambling up a surface faster than other people, you’re rejecting or returning to the sender.

The previous routes or methods others have taken were slower.

But, you know, but to me, it reminds me of the Sam Cooke song, You Send Me, you know.

Darling, you send me.

You know, because to send someone an old slang was about like send them to heaven or send them to the moon or send them to the heights of passion.

Others say that it’s even simpler than that, that send it might simply be you’re returning the climb straight back to the hell where it was conceived because it’s so difficult.

But the best theory probably is that when you’re shouting at somebody up on a wall and they’re far away and you’re shouting,

Send it, A-S-C-E-N-D, it sounds like S-E-N-D.

Oh, seriously?

Yeah.

Oh, send it sounds like send it.

Send it.

So it’s possible it just lost that first A sound through lanition and ascend it became send it.

Oh, wow.

And now it applies to somebody going downhill as well.

Right.

Isn’t that lovely?

That’s cool.

That’s probably, that’s the soundest theory that I could think of.

That’s the soundest theory that has been proposed.

Yeah, it does.

Wow.

Oh, cool.

Well, Tenley, thank you so much.

Stay away from the yard sales.

Be safe out there.

Don’t be a gamer.

I will definitely do that.

You know the yard sales we mean.

I know exactly.

I will try not to litter the ski run with all of my gear as I tumble down the slope and let my hats and my poles be scattered about on the run in a yard sale.

Yes, I will definitely avoid that.

We’ve got some great powder days for the rest of the season.

And I’m so excited.

I’m going to tell everybody in town where this comes from.

All right.

Take care.

Be safe.

Be well, all right?

Stay Cindy.

Yes.

Best wishes.

Thank you, guys.

Be well.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

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