Click here get this free weekly newsletter delivered to your e-mailbox! Want to see more? Go back to All the Words main page.

Slang of the Week: jib (verb)
To do snowboarding tricks on something other than snow (such as logs, steps or railings)

Example:
Mack flew down the hill into the parking lot and jibbed off the top of a Mercedes.

Celebrity quote:
“There are so many things to do and so many variations. I think it is crazy when people say that jibbing can't go anywhere else.”
- Snowboarder Justin Hebbel

Like surfing and mountain biking, snowboarding has developed its own colorful and ever-changing vocabulary. Though the sport began in the 60s, it didn’t really become popular until the 1980s. At that time, people began to call good snowboarders shredders. Though I suppose there are many possible reasons for this name, it’s interesting that Shredder was also the name of an evil character in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book, introduced around the same time.

The term butter the muffin has a far more obvious source. The board imitates a knife as it spins on its nose around an imaginary snow pastry. Goofy means to stand with the right foot forward. Although this term, borrowed from surfing and skateboarding, can also mean crazy, stupid, or drunk, it has no negative connotations in this context.

Names of snowboarding and skateboarding tricks are imaginative and frequently the same in both sports. To do a fakie is to start a trick with one foot forward and finish with the opposite foot forward. But what about a stale fish, nosegrind, alleyoop, or ollie? If you want to know what these look like, check out skateboarding phenomenon Tony Hawk’s video webpage at http://www.tonyhawk.com/visuals.cfm.

What’s new at Slang City?
This week, we explore Anger Management in Movies.