A Hollywood entrance, in spelunker slang, is a cave with a large, dramatic opening like the one at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. The term appears in Burkhard Bilger’s article in The New Yorker about the world of squeeze freaks, extreme cavers who relish crawling through very narrow passages. The article offers plenty of other caving slang. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “In Caving Slang, a “Hollywood Entrance” Is a Large, Epic Cave Opening and “Squeeze Freaks” Love Tight Passages”
Grant, I have some slang for you. Do you know what a Hollywood entrance is?
Is this where you do like Kramer on Seinfeld and slam open the door and stand there for a second to make sure everyone’s looking?
That’s a good guess, and it’s not Jennifer Lawrence going up the stairs.
A Hollywood entrance is something that squeeze freaks would talk about.
Does that help?
Squeeze freaks?
Nope, that makes it even more mysterious.
I have no idea.
These two bits of slang are from a fantastic article by Burkhard Bilger on extreme cavers.
That’s a made-up name, right?
No, no, I’ve met him before.
Okay, extreme cavers.
Yes, he’s a writer for The New Yorker, and there is an absolutely fantastic article, and you can read it online.
And a Hollywood entrance is the kind of entrance to a cave that looks like something like maybe from the King Kong movie.
Okay.
Mammoth Cave in Kentucky has a Hollywood entrance.
It’s really big, as opposed to a little bitty one someplace.
Right, like a cleft that you almost can’t find.
Right, right, covered with brush and all that.
A Hollywood entrance.
And squeeze freaks are extreme cavers who really like going through those narrow, narrow passages.
Oh, wow.
Isn’t that great?
I did that once when I was in college in Missouri, and I don’t think I ever want to repeat it again.
It’s scary, right?
I don’t think I could, given my new girth.
I thought maybe once you explained that it was related to caving, the first thing that came to mind, that maybe it was a bunch of people abseiling down all at once, down and descending down to a cave, just like rapidly descending together.
Oh, a whole bunch of them.
Just like they do in movies.
It’s always like the team’s in perfect sync, and they all come down, and they leap off the rope, and the guns are at the ready, and they go after the bad guy.
No, it’s just the cave itself.
It’s like the stereotypical cave entrance, like you might see in a cartoon.
Yeah, like the Flintstones or something.
But I highly, highly, highly recommend this article.
The article again is?
It’s in The New Yorker Online.
And the author is?
Burkhard Bilger.
Bilger, B-I-L-G-U-R?
G-E-R.
G-E-R, great.
I’ll look for that.
Yeah, it’s one of the best articles I’ve read in a while.
I’ve got a lot of slang in it that I need to get, right?
Yes, absolutely.
We’d love to hear about the weird slang from your hobby or profession and the thing you do when you’re not at work, 877-929-9673, or email us, words at waybirdradio.org.
