Skiing and snowboarding with the Young Dudes on a recent SnowVole bloggers’ trip to the French Alps brought me swiftly up to date with 21st century language. I am not someone who believes that language should remain static and I enjoy hearing – and using – modern adaptations of words and phrases. Words such as cool, fab, mobie, wi-fi, Facebooked and Frape have crept into my own vocab over the last decade.

But, perhaps, I am now getting old! For some of the new language of the Young Dudes  seemed very strange – and when I tried to slot the new words into my own conversations I sounded ridiculous!

New words of the Young Dudes

Sick: Meaning good, cool, awesome, crazy. As in “Wow that jump was pretty sick, man.” (You’ll note that many new words  come before another much used word, “man”.)

Stoked: Used as an adjective, stoked describes being hugely enthusiastic or excited about something. As in: “Man, we are totally stoked about the new Duals.” (Note: See below for definition of Duals)

Gnarly: A term for something extreme and can be used in bad and good cases. As in: “That run was really gnarly, man, I nearly lost my mind.”

Mint: Not the taste of mint tea or a mint Tic Tac but to mean brilliant. The closet use of this might be “mint condition” but younger people now use mint to mean utterly brilliant. As in: “That jump was mint, man.”

BAMF: Acronym for Bad Ass Mother Fucker.

Ripped: Very well-defined body muscles.

Duals: A new kind of snowboarding product that combines the separateness of skis with the shape and ride of a snowboard. New in the US last year and now making their way to Europe, Dual Snowboards allow for huge versatility on the slopes and give riders lots of freedom for pulling tricks and stunts. These Duals are BAMFs! See Stick your Trick website for further details.

Urban: This does refer to a town or city but the word is used to describe an action. As in: “We’re doing urban today.” So while I stuck to the slopes of the more “rural” French Alps, some of our SnowVole bloggers group spent days setting up and pulling off tricks in urban settings. For example, there was a film shoot focusing on Jake on Duals using a lamp-post as a funky obstacle. Another time, Jake skied down a set of steps and one evening some of the group built a jump that took in a handrail along a set of steps. Each to their own, although their tricks did look pretty impressive!

Stick your Trick: I f you don’t know, and I didn’t what Stick Your Trick meant, it’s to land a trick or stunt. I had to ask Bern, who was part of our SnowVole trip and I am sure there were a few Young Dudes who raised their eyebrows in increduality at my question.