Research on mountaineering terminology

Hello everyone!

I am currently carrying out research on how climbers and mountaineers use dictionaries, glossaries, and similar resources dedicated to mountaineering (such as Matt Samet's Climbing Dictionary from 2011 or Wikipedia's Climbing Term glossary). This research is entirely non-commercial and my goal is to find out if the many resources there are of this type are actually used - and how. If you are at all interested and would like to contribute to this research, you are invited to participate in a SurveyMonkey questionnaire (https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/6QMPGXN). Your answers will be reported anonymously in research papers. I am, of course, happy to answer any questions you might have about this topic, and would be extremely grateful for any participant - feedback has been a bit slow, so getting more responses would be quite helpful.

P.S.: If I need to change this post to make it okay for the forum, please do let me know! Also, for transparency: this has also been posted in the UK Climbing forum today.

I don't know much about glossaries, but backstepping is when your leg is behind the rope ;)

It certainly is! :-) And it looks like several people have participated in the questionnaire already - thank you so much!

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

I don't know much about glossaries, but backstepping is when your leg is behind the rope ;)

Bisharat would be proud!

it would be cool to have the link(s) of the paper(s) once the study is completed. 

Bb Cc wrote:

Stepping back is when you discover backstepping is not stepping behind a rope leading to a full stop on backslapping over concern about arm breaking self-flagellation.

seda swrote:

it would be cool to have the link(s) of the paper(s) once the study is completed. 

I'm happy to share a link to the paper once it's published - I aim to go for an Open Access article, so that it should be free to read for everyone!

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

I don't know much about glossaries, but backstepping is when your leg is behind the rope ;)

Only if you're a child that arbitrarily changes the meaning of well established terms thinking everything you hear in your gym is true.

Marc801 Cwrote:

Only if you're a child that arbitrarily changes the meaning of well established terms thinking everything you hear in your gym is true.

I started climbing 7 years ago, and first heard it and learned it in the gym, and sure, that etymology might be erroneous, but it doesnt change the fact that I’ve been using it for 7 years, someone else said they have been hearing and using it for 12 years, and quite a few other people use it. It seems like there is a significant enough population of disconnected people who use the word in that way that it’s taken off, if you like it or not.

I wouldn’t say its an arbitrary change from where I stand, maybe more like nonsensical in origin. Its not like I am its author. But then again, a lot of the english language is nonsensical etymologically. Im gonna keep using it because it’s what I learned and what everyone around me uses. Its built into my reflexes when i see someone backstepping. Ask the researcher above, and I’m sure he will testify to this pattern of evolution in language.

I also just find the outrage amusing on such an insignificant thing, so I’m also just gonna keep doubling down ;)

So you’re happy saying the wrong thing?
Backstepping is a technique, and has been used for “the move”.
None of that gym crap really matters… 

When you finally get your “project” on plastic. Do you runaround telling everyone- “I flashed my project” ???

Got a new word for “on belay” “take” or anything else?

In the end it really doesn’t matter one bit unless you want others to know what you’re talking about.

Later 

The man can't step back!

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

The man can't step back!

Not while it triggers you and the merry gang of Mp trolls ;) its too much fun watching you guys backstep and flipping upside down all over this.

A ton of people (which is a well known measure for a quantity of idiots) ignorantly continue to say “ I could care less about that…” even though the engagement of just a few brain cells tells you the proper statement is “I couldn’t care less about that…” so common usage by knuckleheads is hardly justification.

In climbing, anything learned in the gym falls under “common usage by knuckleheads”.  

Mark Pilatewrote:

A ton of people (which is a well known measure for a quantity of idiots) ignorantly continue to say “ I could care less about that…” even though the engagement of just a few brain cells tells you the proper statement is “I couldn’t care less about that…”

Nothing to do with climbing, but the Harvard neuroscientist Steven Pinker would disagree with you.

Consider an alleged atrocity committed by today's youth: the expression "I could care less." The teenagers are trying to express disdain, the adults note, in which case they should be saying "I couldn't care less"... But the argument is bogus. Listen to how the two versions are pronounced: 

i COULDN'T care LESS
I could CARE LESS

The melodies and stresses are completely different, and for a good reason. The second version is not illogical, it's sarcastic. The point of sarcasm is that by making an assertion that is manifestly false or accompanied by ostentatiously mannered intonation, one deliberately implies its opposite. A good paraphrase is, "Oh yeah, as if there were something in the world that I care less about."

Martin le Rouxwrote:

Nothing to do with climbing, but the Harvard neuroscientist Steven Pinker would disagree with you.

Consider an alleged atrocity committed by today's youth: the expression "I could care less." The teenagers are trying to express disdain, the adults note, in which case they should be saying "I couldn't care less"... But the argument is bogus. Listen to how the two versions are pronounced: 

i COULDN'T care LESS
I could CARE LESS

The melodies and stresses are completely different, and for a good reason. The second version is not illogical, it's sarcastic. The point of sarcasm is that by making an assertion that is manifestly false or accompanied by ostentatiously mannered intonation, one deliberately implies its opposite. A good paraphrase is, "Oh yeah, as if there were something in the world that I care less about."

Neuroscientist, not a linguist = personal opinion; not a valid scientific hypothesis.

The same people who say the incorrect "I could care less" are the same ones who say "for all intensive purposes".

i COULDN'T care LESS
I could CARE LESS

The melodies and stresses are completely different, and for a good reason. The second version is not illogical, it's sarcastic. The point of sarcasm is that by making an assertion that is manifestly false or accompanied by ostentatiously mannered intonation, one deliberately implies its opposite. 

A laughable idiot.

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

Not while it triggers you and the merry gang of Mp trolls ;) its too much fun watching you guys backstep and flipping upside down all over this.

I'm not sure if it's your willful ignorance, or desperate attempt to justify your willful ignorance, that is more amusing.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

A laughable idiot.

A wasted Harvard education.  His parents be like “I want my money back”   Emphasis on I want my MONEY back!   Lol 

Mark Pilatewrote:

A wasted Harvard education.  His parents be like “I want my money back”   Emphasis on I want my MONEY back!   Lol 

We don't know. He may be a very good neuroscientist.

Mark Pilatewrote:

His parents be like “I want my money back”.

It's ironic that you're using "like" in that sense (a 'quotative like'). If you'd used that construction twenty-five or thirty years ago, people would have thought you were, umm... a knucklehead? An idiot? But today it's just part of the language. Just like "I could care less" has been part of the language since the 1950s or 1960s.