Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

There are numerous common words that have totally different meanings when you talk with an open water swimmer compared with the rest of humanity:

Feeding: To stop and take a drink, slurp a gel pack or eat something rapidly while treading water next to a boat, pier, pontoon or kayaker

Pilot: A mariner who points you in the right direction and keeps on staring at you throughout a channel or marathon swim

Grease up: To put skin ointment, sunscreen, lanolin on one’s skin, under your armpits, face shoulders, back, near the groin

Non-stop: To swim for long distances while stopping for regular intervals

Pulling: To grab the water with your hands in order to push backwards behind you

Kicking: To move your legs up and down in the horizontal position

Chop: Turbulence in open bodies of water

Hardened: To be acclimatized to cold water and be able to swim long distances in inhumanly unbearable cold water

Fish: a shark (alternatively, The Man in the Gray Suit, Mack, Old Toothy, Garbage Can of the Sea, The Landlord)

Two-way: a double crossing of a channel

Bloom: group of jellyfish that is sometimes called a smack, swarm or fluther

Circle pattern: pool swimming etiquette when there are more than 2 swimmers sharing one lane

Dead fish: an award given to the last person to finish in an open water swim

Home water: the open water swimming location or venue where a swimmer is most comfortable and familiar with the elements, conditions and marine terrain of the open body

Copyright © 2015 by World Open Water Swimming Association