Martha reports that, during her recent attempt at learning to surf, she picked up lots of surfing lingo in between wipeouts. Such terms included tombstoning and pearling, both of which she did quite a bit. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Surf Lingo”
Grant, I finally did it.
Four years living in San Diego, and I finally decided to take a surf lesson.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Oh, really? How long did you stay aboard?
Let me just say that I will never listen to the song Wipe Out in the same way again.
It has a whole new meaning for me now.
Martha and neoprene. Very interesting.
It’s hot, but it is hard as heck to get that wetsuit on and off.
I tell you, that’s a workout right there.
And Grant, it just reminded me that one of the things I really love about trying something new that other people are passionate about is that you pick up so much great lingo.
I was really excited to be around people who were, you know, saying just perfectly casually.
They were talking about tombstoning and purling and aggro grommet surfer dudes.
And they could pull that off.
I tried pulling it off, but it didn’t work very well.
After class, I said to the instructor, let’s go get some grunts.
Because I’d seen in a dictionary that grunts meant food.
But apparently not in this particular Southern California dialect of surfing lingo.
What do they call food?
Well, she said, grunts? What are you talking about?
And she said, oh, you mean grinds or grindage.
So I thoroughly embarrassed myself.
Apparently, some parts of the world, they say grunts.
You’ll catch up.
My question is, at your age, which is not all that old, are you still a grommet because you’re a newbie?
Or is that only for the young newbies?
I’m a Betty.
Oh, I see.
That’s like a hottie, right?
Yeah.
Okay, that’s good.
Well, I don’t know if I am or not.
But I think I’m a confirmed boogie boarder, actually.
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