I'm fascinated by slang, argot, lingo, technical jargon, whatever you want to call it. It seems to me that we often determine whether a person is a newbie (or a dreaded poseur) by whether they know the "secret language" of our activity. In model-building, for example, a newbie might say "I glued the parts together", while we old hands nod condescendingly and say "You mean you cemented them together, but that's okay, we won't hold it against you, this time... Meantime, fetch me a beer, youth."
For the last year and a half I've been working on a bull riding dictionary, but the only existing copy of it was on my computer at work (shows you what I do at work, doesn't it?) and when my computer was replaced by a newer model, the argot file somehow didn't make it across to the new computer and it is now one with the dust of history.
What's your favorite bit of bull-riding argot or slang? What expressions make you smile? What expressions make you wince? Shorty Gorham is a good source of new words. Out of the blue he'll suddenly say "This bull's pretty juicy." Juicy? Oh, let me write that one down. Or "That bull's awful welly..." Welly? Where's my pencil?? Don Gay is another source of excellent lingo, though not all of his sayings are entirely suitable for mixed company, like the notion of the "ivory enema", and some of them are just too disgusting to bear scrutiny.
I really like "dally" and "suicide wrap" and "Into his wheelhouse", though I confess I don't see the connection in the latter between bull riding and things nautical. But that's the joy of strange lingo, isn't it?
Sounds like fun! I'll have to pay more attention to the commentators from now on so I can pick up a few more. The one, for now, that always makes me smile is "sored up" when referring to an injury (I smile at the term, not the fact that a rider is hurt). The one that makes me wince? Believe it or not---"rank". For some reason, that bugs me.
Just a few off the top my head. I'll think of more later.
Blowed snot in his shorts Horning in on his bidness Horn sandwich Lost a step or two Yard dart Rode him like a yard dog Pulled a (score) That little bull (like there's any little bulls out there) Cowboy up That bull's honest Helicoptored
* He just sorta wallered him off (JW Hart) * Jerked the fire right outta him! (Don Gay) * Jerked the starch right outta his shirt! (Don Gay) * Stickier than a Gummi Bear on a hot desert dashboard (Justin McKee)
A manager where I work used to ride bulls when he was younger, until he realized that he was breaking on average two bones a year. By the time he was 19 he had enough X-ray films to wallpaper his house. But anyway, one day he and I were in the cafeteria talking about bull riding. He'd never watched the PBR, so I was telling him about how Versus occasionally opens the microphone on Shorty Gorham and we'll occasionally get to hear him say fairly spontaneous things.
Like the time a bull ejected the cowboy immediately after the gate opened in a great cloud of dust, pistoning hindquarters and flying cowboy, and Shorty said "God dang!" Another time something happened (I don't remember what) and Shorty said "Woah!"
So the manager chewed his lunch reflectively, and after a minute said "You know, when you get right down to it, what more do you need to say in bull riding but "God dang!" and "Woah!"?"
hee! Those are interesting thoughts. I wonder.....
So, I read Ty's blog this morning and read another bit of lingo: "get dirted". Not "buck off", but "get dirted". Cute.
LOL, oddly, "get dirted" doesn't make me think of getting bucked off as much as it makes me think of Renato Nunes ride in the first round where he picked up two handfuls of dirt and rubbed it on his head.
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Some people are like slinkies. They don't have a purpose But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs
