![]() Kahanamoku, an Olympic athlete and one of the most successful surfers in history, traveled to Australia and brought surfing with him, showing the sport off in Sydney. Much of surfing’s rise to fame can be attributed to just two people: Native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku and American George Freeth. There were attempts to turn surfing into a tourist attraction in Hawaii, but because of the exorbitant costs of traveling to the islands, surfing became more successful as a cultural export. ![]() ![]() It wasn’t until the early 20th century that surfing really spread throughout the world. And the hand symbol that is often interpreted as “hang loose” - a fist from which the pinky and thumb are extended - is actually the Hawaiian shaka, a traditional form of greeting. Other Hawaiian words, like aloha (a greeting) or mahalo (“thank you”), are also sometimes roped into the surfing world. Wahine, for example, is a Hawaiian word for a Maori or Polynesian woman, but it is also used in English to refer to a female surfer. And while the Hawaiian language does not have a massive influence on modern surfer slang, it’s not entirely absent. The earliest surfing language, then, wasn’t English at all, but Hawaiian. Ancient Hawaiians regularly practiced surfing as an art form for a very long time, and it was recorded by Captain James Cook when he first visited the island in 1778, which was the first contact between Hawaiians and the Western world. Historians currently believe that surfing in some form existed in many places in the tropics, but it was Hawaii where it first came into its own. And thanks to this pop-culture saturation, you probably have heard a decent amount of surfer slang before, and might even have your own surfer impression sprinkled with abundant “gnarly”s and “far out”s.Īre surfers really still out there yelling “cowabunga!” and talking about “hanging ten,” though? In this Jargon Watch, we look at the history of surfer slang, as well as the sport itself. It’s a pretty small sport in the country - after all, most people don’t live near a surfing beach - but it has spawned countless movies, songs and summer romances. Surfing holds a special spot in American culture.
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