Beginning Surfer Talk
Today’s lesson will be devoted to learning to speak like a surfer. If you don’t want to be called out as a poser, you’ll have to do more than just shred. You’ll have to master the meaning of such key terms as a stick (a surfboard), boneyard (the area where the waves break), and Quasimodo (riding forward in a hunched-over position).
Now when a surfer starts out, he or she is considered a mere hodad (a non-surfer, one who just hangs around at the beach). If you are a youngster and just learning to surf, you will label a gremlin or a grommet, and you will be expected to earn your stripes by drinking a few Neptune cocktails, which is to say you will be expected to take a few bellies full of seawater as a result of bitchin’ wipeouts. If you get some sand facials into the mix, this can only accrue to your advantage.
Intermediate Surfer Talk
Later, as you become more accepted in the surfing community, you may find others referring to you as bro or bra, a sure sign that you have arrived. Feel free to be stoked.
It will be important now that you do not back down or give up on pounders (hard breaking waves) and return in shame to riding ankle busters (small waves) or riding out in the soup (the foamy part of a broken wave). And once you are a bra you must never be seen sponging (bodysurfing).
Advanced Surfer Talk
As your skills improve, you will be expected to carve and shred, climb and drop, always angling for a primo ride. You will want to show that you can shoot the curl making yourself comfortable in the green room (the space inside the tube).
For sure, you will occasionally take the gas (wipe out) and you may even sell the Buick (vomit seawater after a wipeout), but you will almost certainly win the admiration of your bras and you may even catch the eye of a bitchin’ beach bunny who will be amped just to yak with you.
At the end of the day, you can relax in your baggies (oversized boxer-type swim trunks) and enjoy some gnarlatious refreshments with your bras and their honeys as you reminisce about the day’s activities and get stoked for tomorrow’s off the richter tubes. It’s all so totally rad.
Congratulations, you are now a surfer and can speak the language too.
