Date:  Fri, 10 Nov 1995 20:09:25 -0800

From:  THOMAS CLARK <tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU>

Subject: Re: Gnarly Gnews!



Actually, the (g)narl(e)y news is presented in the most freewheeling

Dictionary of Surfing Terms ever written: THE SURFIN'ary, by Trevor

Cralle.



It was a term that Cralle has as "gnar-gnar; gnarlatious; gnarly;

gnarlness (a term of obeisance); gnarled; gnarler; gnarly-ass; total

gnarler; AND nar, narly "see gnarly"



Cheers

tlc



On Fri, 10 Nov 1995, Dan Moonhawk Alford wrote:



> Excellent, Joan! I was referring to the "fashions of speaking" that

> spread the word widely rather than its origin, which you have (by

> experience?) rightly pinpointed. In fact, prompted by this discussion,

> the person I keep referring to as "my wife" (Dr. Marilyn Silva) last

> night in a class mentioned this topic word and -- lo and behold! -- found

> a native speaker of SurferTalk who told her exactly the same information.

> The expression comes from all the dings resulting in bumps from being

> thrown off boards, battered by surf, etc. For this speaker, the word is

> definitely with a non-optional "g" because of the gnarled appearance.

> However, it is not surprising that even some native speakers of this

> dialect (?) do not know its origin and therefore reanalyze it to have

> either a different silent letter in spelling (k) or none at all. Both

> Marilyn and I are sure we've seen 'Narly!' written before (where?).

>

> On Fri, 10 Nov 1995, Joan C. Cook wrote:

>

> > On Thu, 9 Nov 1995, Dan Moonhawk Alford wrote:

> >

> > > PS -- my wife also is of the opinion that looking up Valley Girl Talk in

> > > Webster's is a case of misplaced authority.

> >

> > :-)

> >

> > Well, actually, Dan, (g)narly isn't Valley Girl Talk, it's Surfer (and

> > Skateboarder) Talk. :-)

> >

> > --Joan (who's too many miles from that part of the world to be licensed

> > to talk about it)

> >

> > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

> > Joan C. Cook                       Imagination is

> > Department of Linguistics                more important

> > Georgetown University                  than knowledge.

> > Washington, D.C., USA

> > cookj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gusun.georgetown.edu              --Albert Einstein

> > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>