Surf’s Up! on Triplet Wordplay Wednesday
Being a “California Girl” I spent a fair amount of time in the surfing community, raising my
sun-bleached blonde surfer boys, when cowabunga, super swells, and hang ten,* peppered
their chatter.
Of course, for most colloquial terms we can’t point to any one person, day, or event that gave it birth,
so as a writer, I like to dream up a scenario … gnarly.
What, in the name of gnarly waves, could have
instigated that surf exclamation? Welllllll, what about … close your eyes … and
first envision a green flag of tree leaves waving in the wind, the tree’s limbs
gently caressing puffy clouds in a soft blue sky …
Run your hand down its grainy brown trunk, feeling
every chunk of bark that lay smoothly against its ringed inner core … bump! Oh
… we hit a knur.
KNURL (nʉrl) n.
1) a knot, knob, nodule, etc.; 2) any of a series of small beads or ridges,
along the edge of a coin or on a dial; 3) (SCOT) a short, thickset person. [WW #61; 2 of 3]
Aha! We stumbled on the word, gnarl.
An apparent synonym for knurl. And what in heaven’s name
were the Scots thinking when they slipped a woodland term over a body? I bolded
the meanings in my mind … and then …
