Trending
Ribbees, gimmees and mulligans are among the terms that add color, fun and uniqueness to the sports we play and watch.
They are words that are in the special lingo of baseball and golf, two sports with especially unique vocabularies. Baseball fans and golf nuts can jabber on and on with their kindred spirits in conversations that may very well leave an uninitiated outsider clueless.
Every sport -- indeed every vocation, hobby, church, club and more -- have their own special terms to describe and communicate what they are doing to others within their circles.
Fishing, too, is a sport with its own special language.
RBIs, often pronounced ribbees, are what every baseball hitter wants to stack up. Runs-batted-in build scores, accumulate wins and earn big-bucks contracts. Gimmees are the putts every golfer begs for, but which opponents grant only grudgingly, while mulligans are the do-over shots of duffers who chunk, blade, hook or slice shots to unintended locations.
Golf and baseball terms are just the tip of the jargon iceberg. Fishing is heavy with jargon that we use to make our sport sound magical, mysterious and maybe even special to justify the lofty place it occupies in our hearts and minds.
Fishing jargon is etymologically diverse. The words' origins have regional origins, are often slang derivatives of the standard words and even vary between the plethora of special interests among anglers who prefer certain tactics, species, freshwater, salt, lakes, rivers and other variables in the fishing game.
Many years ago, a noted word scholar at Youngstown State University wrote his doctorate dissertation on jargon and vulgarities. He told me special interests groups develop their own words and phrases to differentiate themselves from the rest of the population and even to communicate thoughts and ideas in a manner that outsiders cannot understand.
This brings me to a fishing term that my wife Barb despises. As a good husband, therefore, I do not utter that word in Barb's presence. This word is fingernails on the chalkboard to Barb. She's even been known to mute the audio when a TV fishing show angler utters the unmentionable word.
The word is "biggun" (shhh, don't tell her I said it). It's a simple combo deal: big one, slurred into one word. It really is an apt term. But in the jabberwocky excitement of hooking and landing big ones, some anglers are prone to shrilly shriek "biggun" repeatedly.
Fishing is loaded to the gills with jargon. A "dink" is a little fish. A "crankbait" is a lure activated by cranking the reel (yeah, go figure). A "break" is a depth change on the lake bottom or a place where the current is faster or slower than adjacent water.
Some fishing jargon is perfectly descriptive. A "lunker" pretty much sounds huge. "Jigging" paints a vivid image of active lifting and dropping. "Flipping" is a stealthy kind of lure presentation on a heavy line and stout rod. A "buzzbait" makes a buzzing sound as the angler drags it across the surface.
We could fill this entire newspaper page with fishing jargon, but the editor needs that space to report other sports news to you today -- like who is leading the Chiefs in "sacks" and which of the Bengals defenders is effective at shooting the "B gap." Will Jalen Hurts be effective with the "RPO" and will Brock Purdy throw some "bubble screens"?
Jargon, when you really think about it, is one of the great spices of life.
Jack Wollitz's book, "The Common Angler," seeks to answer the "why" behind our passion for fishing. He appreciates emails from readers. Send a note to jackbbaass@gmail.com.