В нета попаднах на една страхотна майтапчийска книга за ските:
Ski-ing (Pocket Dictionary) by
Henry Beard and
Roy McKie. В нея авторите са си направили труда да измислят или да опишат по най-шантъв и забавен начин различните термини и ситуации, в които попада човек като кара ски. Доста свежо и остроумно е написана. Ето и някои извадки от книжлето:
SKI-ING
The art of catching cold and going broke while rapidly heading nowhere at great personal rick.
AERIALS
Competitive ski jumping in which daredevils perform midair acrobatics, with points awarded for lenght of hospital stay, size of bill, originality of X rays, complexity of surgery, and creativity in filling out disability claims as measured by speed and amount of payment.
ALL-MOUNTAIN
Common descriptive term for boots or skis that are designed to perform equally poorly under a wide variety of conditions and over many different types of terrain.
ALPINE
Formal name for downhill skiing, one of a half-dozen distinct styles found in the sport. The others are Nordic (cross-country), Norpine (telemarking), Fanatic (powder skiing), Moronic (tree-skiing in wooden glades), Asinine (snowboarding), and Supine (reclining on a sofa in a nice cozy lodge with a feigned ski injury)
ALTITUDE SICKNESS
Term for a variety of maladies brought on breathing the oxygen-deprived atmosphere at a mountain ski resort that include the common symptoms of headache, dizziness, vertigo, nusea, and insomnia, as well as a number of less-known conditions like Shackleton's Disease (a love of being cold), the Icarus Complex (an indifference to heights), Tussaud's Complaint (a compulsion to apply wax to things), the Bozo Syndrome (an impulse to wear garish articles of clothing), and Rocky Mountain Ski Shop Fever (an overpowering urge to dispose of excess cash).
ANTICIPATION
The first of six basic phases of the classic ski turn, followed in rapid succession by Initiation, Trepidatation, Desperation, Exclamation, and Recuperation. See PREJUMP and TURN.
ANTIFRICTION DEVICE
Teflon pad designed to promote smooth binding release, one of the most recent of a whole host of injury-preventing features, large and small, that have, amazingly enough, made skiing down a mountain actually safer than staying home and falling off the roof of your own house.
APRÈS-SKI
Term for ski resort activities following a long day on the slopes, which typically include le bitch and le moan, le soaking of les tootsies, la long nap, le stiff drink, le big wait at la fancy dump on le airline to see if they have la earlier flight home.
ARTIFICAL SNOW
Layer of man-made frozen ice crystals created by spraying a fine jet of water out of high-pressure nozzles into a very cold air that is identical to a real snowfall in all but one respect: even the lightest sleeper will not lay in bed at 5:00AM if a couple of inches of natural snow begin to fall.
AVALANCHE
The only thing likely to come down a mountain that is more dangerous than a slope full of skiers. See TRACK LEFT & TRACK RIGHT
BALANCING
The process in which a skier continuously shifts his or her weight from the wrong side of the right ski to the right side of the wrong ski. See EDGES and INSIDE & OUTSIDE SKI
BARE SPOT
A place where, due to insufficent snowfall, the underlying earth is visible. Depending on weather conditions, base spots can range from a patch the size of a footprint to a patch the size of a northeastern US.
BASE
1. The layse of snow on the surface of a ski slope. 2. The layer of plastic on the base of a ski that is no longer there because 1 is no longer there.
BEGINNER
Newcommer to the slopes who has to rely on simple ignorance to bring about skiing mishaps thet he or she will eventually learn to cause through sheer stupidity.
BIGFOOT
Giant, hairy, reclusive humanoid said to inhabit remote mountain areas which probably does not exist, but if it does and it ever decides to take up skiing, it's in luck because resortrental shops have a remarkably large section of boots that appear to have been designed exclusievly for its use.
BINDING
Ingenious automatic mechanism mounted on a ski that can hold it clamped tightly to a boot when subjected to a force that would deform a bridge abutment and yet still permit it to drop off the foot of a skier who sneezes while riding a chairlift.
BOOT
A pain in the ass that fits on the foot.
