Skiing White American Vernacular English

This is a report I did for my Linguistic Antrhopology class at UC Davis on the dialect we skiers speak on and off the hill. It was really fun to write and it's pretty long and nerdy as a post but I told my professor about NS and how I was posting it on here to get reponse from the native speakers of this dialect. Give me some feedback and I think you'll get a kick out of it if you're fairly educated.

‘Tis the Steezin
Since Line Skis made the first twintipped ski in 1995 what started as a ripple of innovation has become a cultural tidal wave of New School skiing all over the world. With the popularity of skiing as a sport drastically waning due to the on-hill take over of snowboarding in the 90’s the ski industry was forced to drastically rethink their sports future and this meant new technology and a new image. With one company pioneering the Freestyle aspect of the sport and several large conglomerate corporations literally creating the new shape of skiing, the sport as the world knew it went through more changes in the last ten years than in the hundred years prior. As seen within the rise of snowboarding in the US this influx in ski technology spurred a Cultural Revolution amongst skiing participants and the jargon of that revolutionary group will in short be examined herein.
Everyone wants to be associated with an in group and separate themselves from other groups through some form of prestige. The way New School skiers talk on and off the hill is a reflection of this covert dismissal of the standard dialect opting for a more progressive vocabulary set to distinguish themselves as part of that specific up-and-coming group. Ranging from nuances of Afro American Vernacular English to obvious vintage comeback terms such as “gnar” (rooted in the 80’s slang word “gnarly”), Skiing White American Vernacular English or SWAVE is here to stay. Like its cousin AAVE, more commonly referred to as Ebonics, SWAVE utilizes Creole sentence structures and grammatical cues such as the frequent dropping of the last consonant sound and ending a sentence in a preposition such as in “What up yo?” New words and dialectic pronunciations and usage’s of Standard English word sets apply as well such as: steeze, sick, cork, fat, boot, grease, quiver, butter, switch, twin, stomp, and knuckle, to name a few. Detailed definitions of some words most common to SWAVE speakers can be found amended to this article. Some words from the Standard have been borrowed and attributed new meanings relative to the sport and have subsequently been modified such as in the example of Natural and Unnatural which have been shortened to simply Natty/Unnatty. Cases such as this are specific examples of the kind of covert prestige sought out by this new generation of athletes as they strive to further separate themselves from the sports older generation and the non-skiing public at large.
Admittedly the sport of skiing in the United States has evolved over the years into an elitist activity pursued historically almost in its entirety by middle to upper class Caucasian families. This class of people in the US is the one typically most associated with the use of the Standard English so how can one account for this seeming reversal of language usage seen in the next generation of the sports adult participants? Is the economic demographic of young skiers changing? Or is the vernacular of rich white kids growing in likeness to that of our poorer inner cities? The answer is clearly that it is both. While the cost of ski equipment as a whole continues to rise the two types of skis that have been becoming more and more affordable are both of a New School variety: Park/All Mountain Twins, and Fat Twins for the powder. Ironically these newer genres of skis are found by most of their owners to be significantly more versatile in their capabilities than the increasingly more expensive categories of All Mountain skis marketed to the older generation and the general public, yet they cost much less. So for less money the younger athlete is getting more, meaning more young people can afford to participate in the sport and push it to new limits. And while it is still the wealthier class of individuals trained since birth that are at the very top of the game, many people feel that that fact is about to change.
The other obvious reason for the “steezin” new vernacular of young skiers is the general trend toward such covert prestige in the US youth population as a whole. It can be seen in almost all areas of the country and is coming to be deemed the effect of the “Hip Hop Generation.” While SWAVE shares its ties to this phenomenon of popular cultural influences through the music of the time, it is plain to see that skiers have once again taken something to a new level, and this time it is about language. To distinguish themselves within an elite group of athletes and to assert themselves as individuals as prototypical examples of that elite group SWAVE has been the key. The same can be said of New School ski fashion and apparently it also helps to be good at skiing.


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Steeze- possibly SWAVEs most prolific original term it has come to mean style accomplished with seeming ease.
Sick- the most commonly utilized phrase in praising ones actions on or off the slopes.
Gnar- can be used to mean sick but is also a general expression of the intensity experienced or to be experienced in a skiing situation either positive or negative.
Positive example: Let’s shred the gnar!
Negative example: That fall was way gnar!
Can also be duplicated for dramatic emphasis, ex: That chute was gnar-gnar!
Stomp- To land a jump or drop with authority, also the sound made by ones skis while doing so, a use of onamonapeia
Switch- skiing backwards also referred to as fakie or cab.
Twins/Twintips- any of a variety of skis with turned up tails for the purpose of skiing, landing, and taking off a jump switch. The turned up tail also changes the dynamic of the skis turn allowing it to skid more and get caught up less by the snow.
Cork- spinning in the air off and more technically with ones skis above the 180-degree axis.
Natural/Unnatural- references the direction of spinning. Natural spins are in the direction most comfortable to the skier whereas spinning in the opposite direction typically feels “unnatural.” This varies between and is relative to the individual skier. Also commonly referred to as Natty and Unnaty.
Pow/Powpow/Powder- variations of an expression for fresh untracked snow.
Inrun/Outrun- The stretch of skiing one must accomplish to reach and then escape a desired technical section while retaining ones life.