In what sport would you hear the slang terms glass off, speck out, and get flushed? They’re all expressions used in paragliding. Glass-off refers to a smooth, effortless takeoff; to speck out is to go so high that you’re nearly invisible to those on the ground; to get flushed means to lose lift and be forced to make a landing. The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association offers a glossary of the slang of free flight. As promised, here’s video Martha shot while getting flushed toward the end of her first paragliding flight at the Torrey Pines Gliderport in La Jolla, California. The song is “Fear of Flying,” by Pam Delgado, performed by Blame Sally, and is used with permission. (By the way, we have no idea who Cindy is, but we hope she said yes.) This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Paragliding Lingo”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette, and I’ve been delving into some wonderful slang in a field that’s new to me.
And I wonder if you can guess what I’m talking about.
Guess the field? Or the meanings of the slang? Or everything?
Guess the field, first of all.
Oh, wait, let’s hear it.
Here are three examples of slang from this field.
Glass off, spec out, and get flushed.
Is it water testing?
Water testing?
Is it telescopes? Is it astronomy?
Astronomy is in the general direction thereof.
Is it people who make eyeglasses, optometrists?
No, no.
I heard spec and I heard glass. That’s what I’m thinking of those things.
This is something I did recently that you know about.
Can we talk about that on the air?
Not that thing.
I don’t know. What is it?
The terms glass off, speck out, and get flushed are used when you go paragliding, which I did.
Oh, that’s awesome.
It was so much fun.
You jumped off a cliff.
I literally jumped off a cliff.
That’s what they tell you to do is go running off a cliff.
And these are 300-foot cliffs right there at the ocean’s edge.
Into the Pacific Ocean.
Yes, Torrey Pines Glider Port.
I wanted that sensation of running off a cliff.
And it’s a tandem situation.
So I had an instructor with me.
And you have this, it looks like a parachute, but they call it a glider.
And you go running off into the wild blue yonder and then you float around.
Not motorized, just using the currents of the wind.
Just using those thermals, floating on the thermals.
So the term glass off describes a lovely, glassy, smooth lift, which is exactly what we had.
Oh, so a takeoff that’s glassy.
Yeah, yeah.
According to the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, in the dinner menu of flying conditions, glass off is creme brulee.
So you had that?
I had that.
Wow.
And it was wonderful, just this gentle lift up into the sky and over the sea.
It’s also called magic air.
And to spec out, as you can imagine, is to climb to a great altitude.
You know, oh, he really spec’d out.
Oh, so you have a good spectacle?
Is that kind of what it’s connected to?
No, no.
The person looks like a speck.
Oh, a speck.
You know, when they go really far away.
This whole time I’m thinking S-P-E-C, short for a spectacle.
No.
And the third one, flushed.
We talked about that a lot in the air.
In fact, I got completely distracted when we were floating around.
And I forgot to be scared because we started talking about slang.
My instructor, Max, and I started talking about paragliding slang.
And we got flushed, which means that you lose wind and you have to make a landing.
And so instead of landing back at the top of the cliff, which you’re supposed to do.
At the glider port.
Right, at the glider port.
We had to go down to the nude beach below, which was fun.
You know, there were all these nude people on Black’s Beach, and we just fell out of the air very gently.
And it made somebody very happy.
They weren’t expecting to have a glider land in their lap that day.
They didn’t seem to care.
They were just sitting there nude.
They’re on a nude beach.
What do they care?
But go back to this.
So you did this willingly.
Nobody forced you to jump off the cliff with a little bit of fabric.
I wanted to know what that felt like.
Yeah, it was great.
I highly recommend it.
We will post a link to a lot more of this language on the website.
And Martha, do you have pictures or video to share with the world?
I have, yes.
Yes, we’ll do that as well.
You can watch Martha put her life at risk.
We’ll put that on the website at waywordradio.org.
You know, the world is filled with interesting hobbies and things you do on the side and the stuff that you do for fun.
And I know there’s lingo to it.
Call us and share it.
We love it.
Or heck, talk to us about language in any form or fashion.
Send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
