Saturday, July 15, 2006

Board sports

Surfers developed the skateboard to be able to "surf" on land. Later came windsurfing (also known as sailboarding), bodyboarding, wakeboarding, skimboarding, snowboarding, riverboarding, kiteboarding, sandboarding, and mountainboarding, all now competitive sports. Another fast growing boardsport is skurfing a mix of surfing and more conventional water sports in which the participant is towed behind the boat. Pineboarding and sandboarding are recreational boardsports.

Conceptual metaphors

The word "surf" is polysemous; having multiple, related meanings. "Surfing" the World Wide Web is the act of following hyperlinks. The phrase "surfing the Internet" was first popularized in print by Jean Armour Polly, a librarian, in an article called "Surfing the INTERNET", published in the Wilson Library Bulletin in June, 1992. The term "Surfing" also applies to a gameplay in the Counter-Strike video game, whereby players slide down ramps at high speeds to perform radical maneuvers.

Branding