Through-hikers, those intrepid souls who spend months hiking a long trail such as the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, acquire lots of colorful slang along the way. A NoBo is a northbound hiker; a SoBo is someone heading south, and Yo-Yo refers to the act of reaching the end of a trail and heading back the way you came. A zero day is when you take a day of rest, and a nero day is a “near zero” day, when you walk a mere 10 miles or so. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Through-Hiker Slang”
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.
Grant, of late, I’ve been immersing myself in the language of through hikers. Those are those intrepid souls who do things like hike all the way from Mexico to Canada. And I got some terms for you.
For example, nobo, sobo, and yo-yo. Any idea what those are?
They’re kind of Japanese noodles.
Yeah, I could see ordering some of those and standing in… I’m just thinking of soba, I guess.
Right, right. What are they?
Yeah. So nobo, sobo, and yo-yo.
Yes.
Hiking terms.
Yes.
I don’t know.
Well, nobo is someone who’s hiking northbound.
Oh, okay. So sobo would be southbound.
Correct. And yo-yo would mean back and forth.
That’s exactly it. They go up and then they go back.
Yes.
Yes. People actually do this.
Here are a couple of other ones that I liked. One is zero day and the other one is nero day.
So zero day is what, the day you first set out?
Oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way, but no. If you take a zero day, it just means that you don’t hike that day.
Okay. And near-o day would be?
A near zero day.
So you just hike 10 miles or so, not the usual 20 or 30.
Oh, yeah, just 10 miles.
Just 10 miles. A near-o day.
But really good stuff.
Yeah, when it comes to the language of hiking, there’s some really good stuff. And I want to talk about it some more later in the program.
Well, you know, the show talks about the inside language of everything, sports and hobbies and business and finance and industry and the military and different things that you do that we’ve never heard of.
We’d love to hear about the inside language of your hobbies and professions.
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