I Never Knew There Was a Word for It - Adam Jacot De Boinod [123]
or any of the other ways active people have found to pass their time, from long ago …
cock-squailing an old Shrove Tuesday sport involving flinging sticks at a cock tied by the leg, one penny per throw and whoever kills him takes him away
strag (Lancashire) to decoy other people’s pigeons
trolling (Yorkshire) rolling hardboiled eggs down a slope (on Easter Monday)
dwile flunking (Suffolk) floorcloth throwing (a serious, competitive game)
postman’s knock (Oxfordshire) a method of sliding on ice (by moving on one foot and tapping the ice with the other)
to right now …
to do an Ollie (skateboarding) to flip your ride in the air and stay aloft upon it
yump (rally-driving) to leave the ground in one’s vehicle when going over a ridge
sandbagging (motorcycle racing) a stratagem whereby the favourite lets the rest of the field go on ahead, confident that when necessary he can regain the lead and win the race as expected
bulldogging (rodeo) to leap off a horse and then wrestle with a steer (the intention being to twist it by the horns and force it over onto the ground)
zorbing (New Zealand) harnessing oneself inside a huge inflatable PVC ball, then rolling more than 650 feet downhill
WORD JOURNEYS
upshot (16C) the final shot in archery that decided a match
racket (16C from Arabic via French) the palm of the hand
umpire (15C from Latin: non par, via Old French) not equal
gymnasium (16C from Ancient Greek via Latin) a school for exercising in the nude
RUBBY-DUBBY
Country pursuits
He that would have good luck in
horses must kiss the parson’s wife
(1678)
By long tradition in Britain, certain outdoor activities have been elevated to a higher category, that of ‘field sports’. The most controversial of these is currently banned by law, though what this ban actually amounts to is anyone’s guess:
own the moment in a hunt when the hounds show that they have found a scent
cut a voluntary to fall off one’s horse while hunting
craner (c.1860) one who hesitates at a difficult jump
tantivy (1641) at full gallop
shoe-polisher a derisive term for a dog that doesn’t stray far from a hunter’s feet
TALLY HO!
Since 2004 deer can no longer be pursued with hounds in the UK, marking the end of a tradition dating back well before these terms from the Tudor–Stuart period:
abatures the traces left by a stag in the underwood through which he has passed
velvet-tip the down upon the first sprouting horns of a young deer
rascal a lean deer not fit to hunt
rechate the calling together of the hounds in hunting
dowcets the testicles of a deer
GAME ON
You may however still stalk and shoot these animals, as you may game birds such as pheasant or grouse. Which is perhaps ironic when you consider how much more efficient an instrument a gun is than a pack of hounds. As the Victorian dramatist W. S. Gilbert put it, ‘Deer stalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns’.
collimate (1837) to close an eye to aim at a target
nipshot (1568) in shooting: amiss in some way
fire into the brown (1871) shooting into the midst of a covey instead of singling out one bird
tailor (1889) to shoot at a bird, trying to miss
air washed a bird that lands and doesn’t move or falls dead in the air and hits the ground (thus giving off very little scent on the ground and being difficult for dogs to find)
making game of a dog when it finds fresh scent
BIRDING
A gentler approach to our feathered friends has its own special terminology. And as any birder will tell you, it’s simply not accurate to call them all twitchers:
squeaking noisily kissing the back of your hand in order to attract hidden birds
lifer a particular bird seen for the first time
getting a tick seeing a bird you’ve not seen before
gripping off seeing a bird when someone else doesn’t
stringer a person suspected of lying about bird sightings
dipping out missing seeing a bird
whiffling of geese: descending rapidly from a height once the decision