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General Climbing Discussion

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to A(id) grade or not to A(id) grade

GBedford

30-Apr-2006
7:40:28 PM

Honestly Australians are always desparate to keep in step with overseas. If it wasn't for the proliferation of overseas grading systems I am sure we would have scrapped the Ewbank system ages ago.
For instance we have rapping, pins, stemming, karabiner spelt with a c and other Americanisms. I liked it when the Queenslanders used the term jambing. It was different to the rest of the world. I bet you lot can't remember that.

uwhp510

1-May-2006
10:47:45 AM

This is what I reckon.

Individualism = cool,

American imperialism = suck

gfdonc

1-May-2006
11:00:30 AM

On 30/04/2006 GB wrote:
>For instance we have rapping, pins, stemming, karabiner spelt with a c
>and other Americanisms.

Rappel is from the French. Abseil is German. Carabiner is derived from an Italian word related to "police" (Carabinieri I think). The German spelling inevitably starts with a K.
You can hardly blame the choice of either on the US.

On the other hand, 'biners were always "krabs" when I started climbing, creating much amusement one day when an evesdropper got entirely the wrong meaning out of the sentence "I got a new set of crabs the other day".


IdratherbeclimbingM9

1-May-2006
11:37:40 AM

On 30/04/2006 GB wrote:
>Honestly Australians are always desparate to keep in step with overseas.
> If it wasn't for the proliferation of overseas grading systems I am sure
>we would have scrapped the Ewbank system ages ago.

Yet you also say
> liked it when the Queenslanders used the term
>jambing. It was different to the rest of the world.

Having a bet each way?
:)
I like to think we would not have chucked out the Ewbank system that quickly, but sometimes I despair that you could be right!

Re
>For instance we have rapping, pins, stemming, karabiner spelt with a c
>and other Americanisms.

Perhaps we ended up adopting overseas names for these items/systems because they were originally obtained from overseas?
It would be interesting to muse (over a beer around a campfire), on what they might have been called if we had invented them ...

Don't get me wrong though, as I agree that we suffer from too much 'overseasure' regarding our cultural identity.

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