Have you been watching the Winter Olympics on TV?
Even those Aussies who are not snow bunnies and have never strapped on a pair of skis watch with amazement the spins and turns of the aerial skiers.
And the death-defying plunge down the tube of ice called the luge (if I’ve got that word right) at 150 kilometres an hour (headfirst!)
And that’s not to mention those people desperately sweeping the ice with their brooms in curling (am I the only one to find that funny?); and the pirouettes of the ice skaters—all quite amazing.
Which brings us to this word ‘salchow.’
This is a manoeuvre that figure skaters perform as they work to earn points from tough-minded judges.
Now that really is a weird word, isn’t it?
And therefore, well worth researching.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definition for the ‘salchow’ manoeuvre.
The full name (they say) should be ‘salchow jump’ and what it means is: ‘A jump in which the skater takes off from the inside back edge of one skate and lands, after a complete rotation, on the outside back edge of the other.’
I think I understand what they mean… I think.
But at the very least I can see that it means ‘a very tricky, clever, and difficult jump in the middle of a figure skating routine.’
So, where does the name come from?
From a person.
The ‘salchow jump’ is named after the person who invented it.
And this was Ulrich Salchow (1877–1949), Swedish figure skater who invented it.
He invented it in 1921, so it’s recorded from 1921.
By the way, another Winter Olympics expression I’ve been asked about is ‘goofy’—some commentators may say that one ski has standard stance while another has a ‘goofy’ one.
The word is American slang from early in the 20th century and started off meaning someone who makes ‘goofs’ (that is, mistakes).
So being ‘goofy’ originally meant being mistake prone.
It no longer means that.
Over time it has come to mean ‘eccentric.’
I am told that in skiing (and in surfing) this means have one’s left foot forward instead of one’s right foot.
But in those cases (as well as more widely in the language) that confirms my view that the core meaning of ‘goofy’ these days is ‘eccentric.’
Tonight, I'll join Peta Credlin on Sky News for 'Words Matter.'
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