The Adventurer's Glossary 9780228009474

Table of contents :
Cover
THE ADVENTURER'S GLOSSARY
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
To the Golden Land: The Infinite Choose-Your-Own Adventure of Language and Narrative
THE ADVENTURER’S GLOSSARY
Dedication
The Adventurer’s Glossary
TYPOLOGY
A Typology of Adventure

Citation preview

iJOSHUAGLENN

G-MAa~ ~INGWELL

bESI~NEDG-bECORATED llY SETH

Me(iiii·Queens University Press MONTREAL & KINGSTON • LONDON • CHICAGO

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021 ISBN 978-0-2280-0831-6 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-0947-4 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-2280-0948-1 (ePUB)

Legal deposit third quarter 2021 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The adventurer’s glossary / Joshua Glenn & Mark Kingwell ; designed & decorated by Seth. Names: Glenn, Joshua, 1967- author. | Kingwell, Mark, 1963- author. | Seth, 1962book designer, illustrator. Description: Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210194839 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210194871 | ISBN 9780228008316 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780228009474 (PDF) | ISBN 9780228009481 (EPUB) Subjects: LCSH: Adventure and adventurers—Terminology. | LCSH: Adventure and adventurers—Humor. Classification: LCC G525 .G54 2021 | DDC 904—dc23

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

To the Golden Land: The Infinite Choose-Your-Own Adventure of Language and Narrative 3

The Adventurer’s Glossary 57

A Typology of Adventure 309

Acknowledgments

We thank everyone at McGill-Queen’s University Press, especially editor Khadija Coxon, managing editor Kathleen Fraser, and marketing director Erin Rolfs for their work on making this book a reality. Two anonymous readers for the press provided much valuable advice and in very entertaining peer-review reports to boot. Seth is a genius designer and illustrator; his work here on the third of these crackerjack glossaries rises to a new level of wonder. Thanks to Tony Leone Design for the spiffy Adventure Typology schematic. Thanks, finally, to publisher Dan Wells at Biblioasis, who believed in the first two entries and gave the three of us the chance to work together on shared labours of love.

INTRODUCTION

To the Golden Land! The Infinite Choose-Your-Own Adventure of Language and Narrative m a r k k i n g we l l A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure! – floating ad for off-world migration, Blade Runner (1982)

Joshua Glenn and I have been for some time now collaborators as well as friends. Together with celebrated artist and illustrator Seth, we published two small books of word-definition: The Idler’s Glossary (2008) and The Wage Slave’s Glossary (2011).1 The division of labour here – though you can’t call it labour when you do it for love – was that Josh would provide the list of defined words together with their explanations; Seth would fashion the cover, endpapers, and spot illustrations; and I would write a “philosophical” introduction in the search for general context. One of these, the Wage Slave’s Glossary, was spotted on the Rachel Maddow

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television show as being on offer in the freedistribution library in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011. We were naturally less than thrilled when it was subsequently pulped, along with all the other books in the library, by the New York Police Department. When Seth, Josh, and I met in December of 2019 – Seth had a major retrospective show mounted at the Art Gallery of Guelph – we discussed a possible third volume: The Adventurer’s Glossary. This was just the second time that the three of us had ever been together in person. After touring Seth’s show, Josh and I met him for lunch and then strolled leisurely to the train station to head back to Toronto to attend some Christmas parties. Maybe too leisurely, as it turned out. As we were chatting in the station, just three amiable nerds with possibly too many interests in common, the train was about to pull out. Finally realizing this, Josh and I dashed down the platform, jumping onto the nearest car before the rolling stock headed back east. Seth later told us that the conductor, seeing us running like madmen, said he had delayed his departure for a minute or two, even though he wasn’t supposed to.2 “Lucky he was a generous fellow,” Seth said to

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me later. And what might have happened if we had just missed that train? We will never know. The book you hold in your hands is the result of that continued collaboration among the three of us, itself a kind of creative publishing adventure across two countries, three cities, and various disciplines. The current volume exists by the good graces of a university publisher willing to back a project that joins idiosyncrasy with gentle polemic. Glossaries are, by form and definition, antinarrative. You flip through, choose a word to consider, and leave the rest. And yet, narrative elements begin to emerge if you spend time with the text. Any list of words, including dictionaries, thesauruses, and concordances, can act like a version of what Roland Barthes called, in Camera Lucida (1980), the punctum style of looking: random in first execution, like stabbing your finger blindly into a biblical verse or philosophical text, then revelatory under further consideration.3 The first glossary illustrated the virtues of the idle life, at once active and free from dominant use-values. We took our cue there from various celebrated defences of idleness, from Aristotelian contemplation of the divine in Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics to Bertrand Russell’s spirited popular tract In Praise of

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Idleness (1935).4 In common with all philosophical disciples of idleness, amateur and professional, we were at pains to eliminate lurking misunderstandings. The idler is not lazy or unproductive. Idling is not slacking, since slacking suggests avoidance of an unpleasant or resented task, whereas idling is free of all such strictures: it maps its own lines of flight. Nor is idleness a sign of waning interest in life or some species of disaffection. The idler, we argued, may be the last truly happy person, for he or she is unbound by any expectations save those of pure diversion and personal satisfaction. This kind of unbound creative spending of time is not possible often, or always, for there are other purposes to serve and calls to answer. And yet, it marks the most heavenly moments of our time here and indeed sketches a new experience of time not dominated by appointments and the schedule of hours. So much for the basic argument. The associated lexicon of words is expansive, funny, and sometimes contradictory, not least because attitudes to idleness are frequently negative or even condemnatory. In exploring the linguistic terrain of the idle life, we sought to introduce an oblique critique of the dominant roles played by utilitarian, transactional, and reductive

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conceptions of value. The most obvious of these is what we identified, in The Wage Slave’s Glossary, as the work idea. Here the critique was recalibrated from slant to direct. The work idea is familiar to everyone in the world who has ever traded labour for money. Most insidiously, this idea becomes in many places and times a form of dominant ideology, such that its in fact controversial and dubious presuppositions are hidden under a veneer of apparent obviousness, often in the form of “common sense.” Of course one must get a job! Of course work is the most significant aspect of your daytime life! While recognizing the necessity for making ends meet, we wanted to argue that the sly forms of soft domination that creep into everyday consciousness around the idea of work need to be exposed and challenged. In the years since our composition, this need has become even more conspicuous in the form of immiserated gig-economy workers and toilers at what the late social anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs,” which is to say occupations, sometimes even well compensated, which even their holders recognize as pointless and without meaning.5 The resulting list of words made it clear that this was a kind of struggle to the death,

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between terms that sought to normalize conformity or deaden consciousness and what you might call counterterms that ridiculed or ironized the situation of the wage slave with an eye to emergent resistance. The playfulness of these counterterms is one of their most salient features, since it sounds the subversive note of the untermensch, forced into wryness and comic reversals to signal a refusal to play forever by the dominant rules. Both the oppressors and the resisters perceive here the great power of language in shaping thought and action. As in another Barthes text, Mythologies (1957), we can see in the routine appearance of everyday locutions, including especially neologisms, jargon, and transient slang, how meaning is coiled into daily currency and made a servant – or, occasionally, an opponent – of economic and social power.6 Which now brings us to adventure, where words offer maps to a life well lived. By the middle of 2019 Josh and I had already been engaged in a long email correspondence about the nature of adventure, and especially adventure stories, and we were convinced that this third entry in the Glossary series would complete and extend the entire undertaking. A

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long-time aficionado of adventure fiction of all kinds, from classical sources to graphic novels, Josh was publishing early versions of some new adventure terms on the website HiLoBrow, where I sometimes contribute. In some early exchanges he offered his version of how the three volumes might be considered together. “While working on The Adventurer’s Glossary,” he wrote, “it has occurred to me that this book should have been our first.” He went on to explain. “If you’ll permit me to get dialectical for a moment, I’d suggest that The Adventurer’s Glossary articulates our shared thesis: one should live a fully engaged, passionate, exciting, risk-taking life. The Wage Slave’s Glossary diagnoses and analyzes the discourse around wage slavery: the adventurous life’s antithesis.” The Idler’s Glossary, by contrast, “articulates the radical idea that the purpose of life is not work, but leisure. Idleness involves bringing passion, adventure, and risk-taking to one’s work. From the perspective of the wage slave, work and adventure are opposites; for the idler, they are one.” To which I would add that the dialectic only becomes more obvious the more attention is given to its various moving parts. The work idea gets internalized in an outside-in process, so familiar from Freud and others, that makes

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the adventurous life harder to find. We had criticized the work idea as an ideological construction, in standard Marxist kulturkritik fashion, but then we further noted how often the hollowing out of genuine creative impulses can be weirdly refilled with ideas of duty, devotion, and integrity that are actually psychic lackeys of the current arrangement. Thus the workaholic, for example, who is addicted to a form of satisfaction that never arrives. This is the work idea as toxic virus. And while we were very clear that the idle life is not the lazy life – an idler can be a swashbuckler as much as a champagne-quaffing aesthete – it is worth adding that idleness might be seen as always on the brink of some sort of thrilling sally into the unknown. Idleness is an implicit openness to dashing (mis)adventure. One might think here of Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey, decorated war hero and dedicated collector of incunabula, who solves murder mysteries while sipping vintage port and romancing the lovely Harriet Vane. Now there’s an idler for you: brave, smart, active, and sophisticated.7 He does what he does because he loves it. (As a member of the English landed gentry he also enjoys independent financial means, something most of us cannot imagine.)

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As so often, though, dialectical forces can be discerned in the familiar material structures around us, at least in an incomplete sublation. Consider Robert Propst and George Nelson’s design for the so-called “Action Office,” completed for the Herman Miller Research Corporation in the mid-1960s.8 The concept created a simulacral jet-airplane “cockpit” for otherwise dowdy white-collar workers, with consoles and tools set in efficient arrays to encourage a feeling of action and split-second purpose. Even office chairs would come to resemble aircraft seats, with ergonomic shaping and microtechnological adjustment levers. The ironic inversion of the Action Office is, naturally, the tiny office cubicle set off by fabric-covered halfwalls in the all too familiar “cube farm” pattern that Douglas Coupland, himself a gifted parodist of work-idea lingo, called “veal-fattening pens.”9 Meanwhile, ersatz adventure is offered to office workers by way of linguistic migrations such as “ahead of the curve,” which originally came from airspeed and drag coefficients as they affected the mathematics of flight; and “pushing the envelope,” which first referred to test pilots attempting to exceed the standard performance specifications of new aircraft prototypes.

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A middle term here might be the office layout presented in, say, the Mad Men television series (2007–15, set between 1960 and 1970) or Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960), where the executives enjoy sleek teakwood office spaces with space-age appurtenances while the peons, like hapless C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), toil in vast open floors of lined-up desks. (The film is, incidentally, nicely satirical about contemporary work-idea jargon, such as the ubiquitous habit of adding “wise” to render any noun into an adjective, business-wise.) These days we could go even further and say that the graphic user interface of every computer and phone in the world is itself the instrumental console of everyday faux-jet-pilot life. There is always a control panel, a kind of heads-up display, and instant monitoring and action. Now you don’t even need a cubicle. Wherever you are is your flight deck, even if you’re in a Starbucks or a dentist’s waiting room. Why does adventure give meaning to life? Because, among other things, it alleviates or even obliterates daily life’s routine and lurking tedium – which is not to be confused with boredom, as I argued in a recent book.10 Adventure is life lived at a high pitch, even when the

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adventures are small in cosmic scope. Quests, treasure hunts, heists, military missions, secret assignations are all high-level adventures, of the kind we mostly consider. But a trip to the beach may become an adventure, unleashing a surprising gust of sudden joy, just as, in ironic counterpoise, an ordinary task can be made into an adventure when one performs it badly. (“He made putting up that picture into a real adventure.”11) All adventures, large and small, are driven by desires: for secrecy, wealth and power, political success, military advantage, survival, or the simple pleasure of beating the game or opponent. The absence of desire being a form of death, nothing speaks to the texture of life more than adventure, even when it is without apparent purpose – hence the appeal of sports, for example, which at once mean everything and nothing in a given moment. Adventure is challenge and reward, risk and redemption. It doesn’t have to be physical or violent. There are romantic adventures, aesthetic, intellectual, and philosophical ones, and spiritual challenges of all kinds. In fiction, where most of us encounter adventures of the nonordinary kind, we find a host of related but distinct narratives: the epic quest, the rescue mission, the heist, the rogue

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behind-the-lines action, the treasure hunt, the routine sortie gone bad, the secret assignment, the explorer’s discovery, the revenge plot, and so on. One key theme we find over and over in the modern political thrillers – not to mention North By Northwest (1959), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and The Matrix (1999) – is that of the ordinary man drawn willy-nilly into extraordinary circumstances, whether through mistaken identity, amnesia, or simple happenstance.12 The classic version of this trope was popularized by Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley (1814), then reprised in Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886) and Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). John Buchan revived what looked like a moribund subgenre with The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) and subsequent adventures, which inspired Ambler, Greene, Household, MacInnes, Shute, Heinlein, Kyle, and many other twentieth-century masters of adventure fiction. This narrative staple, in which the supposedly ordinary man (or, rarely, woman) finds unexpected reserves of quick wit, courage, wiliness, and plausible scheming, may be one of wish fulfillment, Walter Mitty with a jolt of adrenaline; or it may function as a species of cathartic avoidance, desirable for both fun and enduring psychic health, allowing me to imag-

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ine in vivid detail what I would not wish actually to experience. Both reactions can occur at once, which surely defines one of the key pleasures of adventure fiction as a literary and cinematic form. As Josh has noted, the two basic premises here are that (a) adventure is always escapist, and (b) each adventure type’s ultimate theme is escape from a particular kind of invisible prison. Related is the corollary insight that adventure works to critique the imperfect, enervating conditions of a postlapsarian world, and therefore is always at least implicitly utopian. These are among the reasons that adventure is so often considered in terms of fiction, usually novels or films of dashing derring-do and brilliant, desperate exploits. Most of us, as Thoreau said, lead lives of quiet desperation, not the noisier kind. But true adventures happen all the time, and every day is its own kind of challenge. Fiction unites our dreams with daily occurrence and offers narrative to shape what is so often messy and inconclusive in the real world. Moreover, fiction offers that curious admixture of solitude and community: each reader experiences a book or film in her or his own way, the story itself is a common property, a gift economy. Those who know the same

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book or movie form an ad hoc gang, a fellowship of the story. We share, even without knowing each other, what recent slang would call squad goals. The words and definitions that follow, not all of them recent, are not secret or coded, but they’re often slang: the form of linguistic invention that almost always creates a gang and implicitly plans an adventure for its members. It must be noted that the bulk of popular adventure tales share certain traits that are worth questioning: maleness, straightness as construed via “manly” virtues, whiteness, solitariness, and a preference for the outdoors or the urban wilderness of the spy or fugitive. This preponderance is lately challenged by, variously: female heroes (Sarah Connor, Jessica Jones); lgbtq heroes (Northstar, Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Valkyrie, maybe Deadpool?); Black heroes (Storm, Black Lightning, Luke Cage, Black Panther, etc.); supportive collectives or squads (see more below); and realworld urban adventuring: camera-avoiding antisurveillance treks, concrete parkour, and political repurposing of streets or public spaces by way of occupations or die-ins.13 As this range of examples indicates, some of the most interesting contemporary counternar-

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ratives to traditional masculine adventure tales come from the fertile field of comic books, graphic novels, and political activism, where the norms of adventure are constantly being reworked in vivid, often youth-oriented ways. Other pushbacks come from decisive recent changes in gender politics and the tactics of political resistance, themselves often conjoined. This is not Kipling or even Fleming territory anymore. So, in addition to comic books and issuebased activism, but nevertheless fertilized by them, science fiction and fantasy fiction have offered many avenues for new lines of adventurous flight. Alice’s inspired and trippy adventures in wonderland prefigure more modern, and often violent, female-centred tales in the universes of The Hunger Games or Divergent – even in, for that matter, C.S. Lewis’s wonderful and enduring Narnia Chronicles, with their impressive young female stalwarts. The latter books in turn relate to the satisfying unsupervised-kid Famous Five adventures and other precursors of what is now labelled young adult fiction. Here, mixed groups of youngsters strike out into a dangerous world while the grown-ups are doing mundane, boring business elsewhere.

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Sometimes these off-the-family-reservation forays involve problem solving as well as gusto: Harriet the Spy, Veronica Mars, Rey Skywalker, and Nancy Drew are intrepid adventurers, after all. And never forget, going supernatural, the awesome prowess of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially in the kickass, love-tortured mode of the television series (1997–2002).14 One then thinks, too, of the characters wrought by sf/f writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Ursula K. Le Guin or the gender-bending warriors and emotional aidrive spaceships in Ann Leckie’s work, with their nonstandard heroic gender-fluid protagonists. Further, consider that not all dragons are slain by male knights wielding heavy broadswords. Robert Munsch’s Paper Bag Princess, one of the most enduring and engaging of dragon-defeaters, has no traditional weapons and a mop-head haircut, plus the implied noncostume; yet she prevails over the mythological beast in its lair by exploiting egotism.15 Meanwhile, the daily adventure of caring for someone else – a lost or abandoned child, a youthful ward like Dick Grayson, a stray of any kind – is part of what it means to be a real hero. Childrearing and mentorship creep back into

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the implicit solitude of the quest. No hero is an island, and parenting is just hard. For insiders, the trifecta of alt-adventure here might be Lightning (Jennifer Pierce), the adolescent daughter of Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce), who acquires her father’s abilities even while dealing with teenage-rebellion issues just when she gets recruited into the Justice League of America. It turns out, then, on this kind of deeper reflection, that the apparently paradigmatic adventure tale – lone straight male striking into the wilderness or undertaking a mission – is really just a departure point for what it means for anyone to accept and endure risk of all kinds.16 Any adventure, however mundane, is a bargain with the fork between success and failure, victory and defeat. And often we cannot win if we believe that we must do so alone. Josh Glenn is a semiotician by training and profession, and so a master of classification. His resulting typology of adventure subgenres is sprinkled throughout this glossary and set out in an appendix to this book. The various types in this associative cluster include forms as varied as the Robinsonade, coined in 1731 to describe the many imitations of Defoe’s Robinson

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Crusoe (1719), the Cozy Catastrophe, and the Argonautica, which takes its name from the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece, together with its doomed twin the Argonaut Folly and several specialist subforms: the Crackerjack Heist, the All For One, One For All Adventure, and the Beautiful Losers Alliance. Further examples embrace the Picaresque, the Frontier Drama, the Avenger Drama, the Secret Identity Adventure, the Self-Liberation Adventure, and one of my personal favourites, the Reluctant Badass Adventure. There are, further, the Ruritarian Fantasy, the Atavistic Epic, the Survival Epic, the Escapade, the Treasure Hunt, and the Hide-and-Go-Seek Game – itself subdivided into Artful Dodger, Conspiracy Theory, and Apophenia.17 This is literary structuralism with a selfconscious tongue-in-cheek flavour, as if the seeking after types becomes its own kind of genealogical quest narrative. More seriously, it allows fans to wonder where and how their own special choices might figure in it. Which subArgonautica type is enacted in Camelot, The Three Musketeers, or The Fellowship of the Ring? Is Jason Bourne, for example, initially a reluctant badass (“Why am I so good at fighting?”), only to become a victim of secret identity

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(“What have I done?”), and then an avenger (“How can I punish the people who made me?”)? Despite their wild differences, are Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and Toy Story (1995) entertaining examples of the same category, namely the beautiful-losers Argonautica? Does Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) start as a crackerjack heist and then descend into an Argonaut folly? What species of self-liberation unites Nietzsche’s übermensch, the Count of Monte Cristo, Heathcliff, Captain Nemo, Batman, Adrian Veidt of Watchmen, or Jay Gatsby?18 This is the ultimate parlour game for film geeks, spy novel fans, and popular culture nerds of all stripes. While it is always entertaining to analyze the substrata within a category, we must also work to synthesize our understanding of it. What, then, are the key shared components of the very idea of adventure? I propose to isolate five necessary conditions of adventure, which can then add suitably diverse sufficient conditions to achieve success in instantiating the concept. They are: (1) the sudden vividness and inescapability of the unknown, (2) its attendant dangers or challenges,

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physical and intellectual, (3) the overcoming of these, at least in part, with courage or risk-taking, (4) the experience of hope, and (5) a resulting existential test of selfhood, which may not always be passed. In parodies and satires, these same elements are present but inverted or mocked in whole or in part and either gently or savagely. “Adventure is just hardship with an inflated sense of self,” a cynical character says in the television series Orange Is the New Black.19 Often enough we embellish our daily challenges, and the minor incidental injuries, in a deluded search for distinction or badges of honour. There are usually others around, maybe our closest frenemies, to spill the hot air from our sails. The etymology of the English word adventure traces in typical fashion a fairly direct route from Middle English to Old French and then to Latin. The roots suggest a matter of arrival, of something about to happen. Thus the first essential quality of an adventure is that it has to do with the unknown. But the arrival must be of a special sort, namely something that upsets the ordinary progress of one’s

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world. Even in an expected kind of adventure, such as a military mission or a mountainclimbing expedition, the elements of danger and risk dominate the consciousness and the unfolding narrative. No amount of preparedness can be equal to the demands of contingency. “No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder is supposed to have said. It is a warning that every sagacious commander must remember. More accurately, von Moltke said this: “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force” (from his essay “On Strategy,” 1871).20 My own favourite condensation of this curb-yourenthusiasm wisdom is attributed to heavyweight boxer and convicted felon Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”21 To which we might simply add: everybody gets punched in the face sometime. When that happens, whether atop high peaks and high seas or, emotionally, in your own dull living room, the challenge is one that threatens to unstitch the fabric of selfhood.22 Only by overcoming the various challenges, outsmarting or dominating the various obstacles, can you

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achieve success. Nietzsche believed this feeling of overcoming was the essential component of happiness.23 What adventure reveals is that this view is only partially correct. Overcoming is a kind of happiness but one that often leaves the apparent victor laden with regret, guilt, depletion, and an imperfect relief. The preadventure world is not restored; it is decisively altered. We can never experience it, or ourselves, in quite the same way again. This, then, is where hope plays a decisive role. In action-adventure terms, the hurry-upand-wait elements of the adventure (the period before we begin the offensive/break/escape) or the periods of forced inaction (I am trapped for forty-eight hours as I am hunted by counterespionage agents), combine stasis with fear and apprehension. This is fertile existential ground and a test of character beyond the simple exercise of skill. Mental toughness outranks physical toughness. A good writer (Ambler and Greene again, Helen MacInnes, Household – he’s a master of this mood within the adventure genre) can make these hours of inaction even more nerve rattling than the minutes of action. How did I get here? What the hell is going on? Will I get out of this alive? Boredom of this special apprehensive kind becomes the greatest

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existential adventure of all! And for people who doubt that boredom is compatible with rattled nerves, I can assure you that it is, even in mundane life. Think about the hours before a challenging job interview or a final exam or even a marriage ceremony. Like the prebattle soldier or solitary fugitive, we want to get on with it, but there is nothing to do but wait. Ernst Bloch’s notion of utopia in The Principle of Hope is relevant here.24 Bloch outlines the peculiar duality of belief and doubt that is characteristic of political hope. This is expectation beyond expectation. It is not logical but it is somehow reasonable. You can hear the resonance in the popular dialectic Soixante-Huitard slogan: “Be reasonable, demand the impossible.” Jacques Derrida will say later that hope is the “unresolved remainder” of all dialectical processes. It is that which will not be assimilated by the engines of reality, including reason itself.25 This idea of hope then goes on to influence writers as disparate as Adorno, Debord, Jameson, and Jonathan Lear. Lear’s book Radical Hope is about the reasonable but irrational utopian desire to restore a lost culture, in particular that of the Crow Nation of American Indians, wiped out by economic and cultural

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depredation.26 As Lear’s subtitle has it, hope is practising “ethics in the face of cultural devastation.” People often dismiss utopian ideas because, they say, we cannot imagine the state of life on the other side of revolution, and so the violence of trying to get there cannot be justified. But that is just the point: utopian thinking is radical because it refuses existing standards of justification. We may not want to be full-on utopians of the familiar world-inverting sort, given all the proximate dangers, but we might choose the adventure of being anti-antiutopian. Let the ideas and programs multiply! There is likewise a link forged in adventure between utopia and frontiers or thresholds. All adventures feature some sort of frontier, whether literal in the case of the unsettled jungle, desert, forest, or galaxy, the contested border or Iron Curtain or metaphorical, as in testing one’s limits of endurance and bravery. A basic typology of utopia schemes can be sketched in terms of frontiers, mirroring this element. Such a scheme would move from structural, maybe violent reform of existing conditions (Plato’s Republic, notoriously), to physical movement to a new “undiscovered” place (More’s Utopia, likewise notoriously), and

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then to some temporal new age (most science fiction, especially Star Trek, but also Marx’s classless society). The very notion of utopian frontier changes from here to there to then. Hope is the uniting term, running us from where we currently stand toward a golden land of adventure and opportunity, across whatever we currently consider the final frontier. Which is never final. An insight that illuminates the enduring differences between American and Canadian frontier mythology is apposite here. In the United States, the frontier was the Wild West, outlaws and shoot-outs and saloon brawls. In Canada, the frontier was where a massive corporation, the Hudson’s Bay Company, colonized the land and extracted its resources, all with the paramilitary aid of the nwmp and rcmp. The Canadian version is not so much a more peaceable option, as often claimed, as it is a more state-sponsored clear-cut of land and Indigenous populations – though these things happened in the US too. Meanwhile the stereotypes survive: Billy the Kid versus Dudley Do-Right or maybe crooning Nelson Eddy.27 There are, to be sure, wicked inversions and parodies here. Counternarratives, dystopias,

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antiheroes, and send-ups thus keep hope from running amok or getting caught up with itself.28 For example, the greatest ironic riffs on picaresque adventure must be Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605) and Voltaire’s Candide (1759). The first notably gave the world the phrase “tilting at windmills,” a handy metaphor for all species of ill-judged, bogus, or naive knighterrantry.29 The second makes the journey of self-liberation and wisdom into a dark philosophical comedy, skewering Leibnizian metaphysics and ending up where maybe we should have started: cultivating one’s garden. A garden is, after all, itself a threshold space: at once domestic and natural, inside the household but not in the house. Stay there, enjoy a glass of wine, read a book – of adventure! Perhaps the most basic threshold or frontier is the one between civilization and chaos, and here the adventure tale is both cautionary and exciting. The wildness of the frontier is sublime but dangerous; cities, the original sites of the civilization-threshold, offer the concrete walls of safety, law, leisure, and commerce. When we venture outside the walls, beyond the pale, we put our core sense of self at risk. This may threaten individual integrity only to reinforce

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it, but it may also reveal that safety and security are forms of imprisonment, the coddling of soft bonds. The tedium of reliable identity can become its own prison, even though the escape is excruciating. Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915) is, after all, an adventure story of an especially harrowing kind.30 By the same token, Kafka’s The Trial (written 1915, published 1925) is the very model of a metaphysical-spiritual adventure precisely because it involves a quest with no clear goal, a network with no obvious hierarchy, and a violent ending that is also (to some readers, anyway) bleakly funny. In a class I often teach on fiction and philosophy, I give the students a little essay by David Foster Wallace, in which he talks about how hard it is to convey the peculiar brand of Kafkaesque humour and its constant deployment of thresholds. We should imagine, he says, an increasingly frenetic prisoner in a room, pushing and pushing and pushing on the only door, desperate to get out. He rages and rants, sweats and weeps. Then it is revealed that the door opens inward, not outward. Wallace concludes: Das ist komisch.31 Even if we solve this little puzzle, another, harder one awaits us. Is the existential opening

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an escape hatch or just a sly trapdoor? We’ll never know unless we perceive that it is meant for us alone, and try it. Personal identity is already an adventure, with or without a coherent narrative. At least since Locke, two things have been considered crucial: continuity of memory and continuity of physical presence.32 Guy Pierce’s character in Memento (2000) shows us what happens when the first is disrupted, Gregor Samsa demonstrates the breakdown of the second. Many psychologists and philosophers subscribe to the narrative conception of self, whereby birth and death inscribe the story’s span and its sense is made recursively from hatch to dispatch (with a match or two along the way).33 This then invites consideration of the tension between habitus and liberation, and the maybe reckless ways we go about seeking the latter in some sort of flight from the former. But there are those, prominently, Galen Strawson, who repudiate the narrative conception altogether. Life, he argues, is a lot more like “the great shambles” described by William James than a story, however ragged.34 And we would have to say, under the conditions of technological immersion and dislocation de-

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scribed in my boredom book, that he is correct. For many if not most of us, there is no coherent story being constructed here nor can there be. There are only shards and shingles on the beach. That is how things hang together, which is to say not really, and thus how I hang together within them, which is to say mysteriously and contingently. And so another dialectical moment presents itself. Chaos and narrative vie together in our adventures of selfhood. Specific experiences, memories, and images will recur and ground these reflections, sometimes especially from cultural experience. Smells, recalled songs, visual scenes. In film, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s black slab, Kane’s Rosebud, or the Maltese Falcon. These are of course MacGuffins in Hitchcock’s sense – obscure objects of desire, themselves meaningless, around which the narrative spins. But they are also much more than that: oneiric hauntings, intimations of mortality and meaning, strange signs across time.35 This nonnarrative may be personally painful or not, depending on proclivities and degree of introspection, but it may simply be the case that the narrative conception is obsolete, we are at best, to paraphrase Eliot, shoring fragments against our ruin. Postmodernity may be less

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about multiple overlapping performative narratives, per Judith Butler, and more a matter of no narrative at all.36 Survival is obviously the most basic adventure, the baseline of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Making the simple continuation of personal identity dramatic and not just gruelling is an art. I think often of two stories that haunted my childhood: Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” (1908) and Carl Stephenson’s “Leiningen Versus the Ants” (1938). Both are terrifying tales of human will pitted against the mute but implacable forces of nature. The world does not need us; it is indifferent to our desires. Coming to see that, and then to embrace its difficult truth, may be the bravest thing any of us ever does. Existential confrontation with self is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it may be a way to see that stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.37 Actual prison-break stories, including such desperate futility fables as The Prisoner television series (1967–68), The Great Escape (1963), or Papillon (1973), where almost nobody actually escapes, highlight Foucault’s tension between inside and outside, obvious and yet perhaps finally unreal.38 They offer an ever-

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thwarted threshold function. This inside– outside logic may work as avoidance ritual, of course, obscuring the larger disciplinary order by offering effectively staged versions of it, visited dramatically on a minority of the population. Or it may, perhaps later, reveal the falseness of the divide between free and unfree. “I am not a number, I am a free man!” is Number Six’s defiant cry in The Prisoner, where he is significantly branded, and addressed, only by a number. But surely that is a motto for everyone, maybe especially those of us not obviously incarcerated in the toy-time “Village” of the series, with its cricket blazers, boating hats, and carnivalesque accoutrements. Prisons come in all shapes and guises. A program for fulfillment might just be another ideological straitjacket. A freedom plan may be just another scheme organized by The Man. The resulting scepticism is something we might then share with classical liberals. But we also know that constraints and regulations, and of course repetitions, can be emancipatory. This is our fertile ground, where kulturkritik meets popular fiction and film, and vice versa. The adventure story says, in effect, you didn’t know how trapped you were until you found yourself

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actually trapped. You didn’t know how unfree you were until you found yourself fighting for your freedom. The notion of an invisible prison, or a toocomfortable incarceration, is essential for understanding all types of genuine adventure. Merely utilitarian action, dominated by a prefixed outcome, takes on the character of work – routinized, tedious, enervating. To offer all of happenstance, challenge, overcoming, hope, and selfhood, adventure must be governed by the free play of movement and possibility. Escape from the ordinary is the only true kind – for only there will you meet yourself and so become who you are.39 Consider, as a final note, Gilles Deleuze’s important distinction between repetition and routine.40 The latter is the scourge of ordinary life, the tedious forms of habitus that grind down creativity and life force, squelching thought and action. Repetition, by contrast, initially looks like simple re-creation, as in Jorge Luis Borges’s story of Pierre Menard “copying” Don Quixote. In fact, Deleuze argues, this repetition is a transgressive act, creating a new work of art by the very means of exactly repeating the text word-for-word. We could think of more mun-

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dane examples: when I fish, chop wood, or swing a baseball bat, I cast, cut, and swing the same way over and over again – it is the only way to become any good at these things, to fuse mind, body, and instrument. But every repeated cast, chop, or swing is new, a line of hope upon the water, an incisive mark upon the log, a decisive cut at the fastball. What looks the same is in fact unique and blissfully so. Driving is the same: exact repetition of mirror checks, lane changes, presses upon brake and accelerator. And yet, every act of driving is also a new punching-through to the future of possible outcomes, a unique time and place. One might add further instances: cooking a favourite recipe, hearing a song one knows well, rereading a beloved book. Each instance is the same but also different. Repetition thus creates its own dream logic of condensation and displacement. This transgressive feature, then – the expansion of self via repetition – is what mere routine lacks or even kills. Deleuze uses the term “generality” rather than routine, but the point is preserved. Working an assembly line, living days on end in a stultifying sameness, telling the same jokes over and over – these are deadening effects rather than enlivening ones.

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Contrast retelling the same joke over and over with the cumulative effect of a running gag. The former is simply boring or irritating; the latter generates a rising pitch of hilarity, the repetition itself part of the meta-joke. People sometimes say routine can be liberating, but in fact they are talking about repetition: the way sameness can be the staging ground for something grand and life affirming. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw: “Repetition teaches us how to recognise our true nature as we’re returned again and again to the aspects of ourselves that we cannot reshape.”41 Not reshape, no; but we can, in confronting those recalcitrant aspects, learn to expand and grow. How, then, do you choose the style and direction of your adventure? Those of us who are of a certain age will recall “Choose Your Own Adventure books,” which were fairly primitive but very engaging texts that could be pursued in different ways via forking choices: if you choose to enter the dark cave, turn to page 56, and so on.42 I loved them. They somehow seemed more real, perhaps because more tactile, than the old-fashioned arcade video games that used to eat up our quarters at the Grant Park Mall in Winnipeg.

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In its own low-tech way, a glossary is a kind of choose-your-own adventure text. The terrain here is not narrative – there is no story emerging from your choices to dip into one word’s meaning or another’s. Except that, as the terms and connections collide in one’s mind, new pathways of understanding may indeed be opened up, some baffling puzzle solved, or a new move in the ongoing game of life illuminated as possible. It is not fanciful to see in the ever-renewing play of langue and parole those same five essential features of adventure. New locutions are treks into the unknown, challenging after their own fashion, testing one’s resolve, belief in the future, and sense of self. Thus do we navigate the ordinary tales and yarns of individual life without a map.43 Whether in language or in life, nobody can choose your own adventure but you. It is an adjunct insight, if you like, to Heidegger’s existential insistence that our mortality is not something you can ever off-load or outsource to anyone else. You must do your living, and your dying, on your own. Others will be there, just as there are companions and fellows on any adventure. Some of these will be helpful; some will be rivalrous, and some may be leagued in a

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silent conspiracy to bring you low. You cannot know any of this until you know it. The choices of everyday life always fork and do so endlessly. Turn to page 56 or to page 94 or page 42 or maybe start again. Or just put the book down and go outside. The world is your own personal multiverse of potential choice. Who you are or might be is the biggest adventure of all, and it’s not at all limited to the straight-backed white men who seem to populate the received fictional worlds to such a large degree. They are no more than a baseline, a springboard. Their dominance lies in the past. New shapes and measures come to us now. No matter how fine-grained our categories and discussions, the basic appeal of the adventure story is the same over and over again, narrative repetition at its finest. We want to live in hope, determined to the end, and for that we need language and its infinite constructions. Let’s get started!

notes 1 The Idler’s Glossary (Windsor, on: Biblioasis, 2008) and The Wage Slave’s Glossary (Windsor, on: Biblioasis, 2011). 2 Adventure flashback: in the fall of 1999, when I

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travelled from Paris to London on the Eurostar, immaculately clad in some choice black Armani suiting, I just managed to catch a connecting train to Cambridge by leaping at full sprint into the guard’s rear van, with his frantic encouragement, as the train pulled out of London King’s Cross. Apart from winning at blackjack in a Caribbean casino while smoking a Montecristo No. 4 and drinking a Cuba Libre, this may be the closest I will ever come to a James Bond moment. Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Richard Howard trans. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981; orig. La chambre Claire: Note sur la photographie, 1980). Barthes’s notion of punctum in photographs is the arresting detail or stab of connection that leaps from a viewed image. By contrast, studium is the larger cultural interpretation of the image. Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness (London: Allen & Unwin, 1935). David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018). Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Annette Lavers trans. (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1972; orig. 1957). Barthes explains his interest in the effluvia of popular culture: “The starting point of these reflections was usually a feeling of impatience at the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers,

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art and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history.” Thus does kulturkritik become ideologiekritik. 7 Wimsey forms one corner, with Sherlock Holmes and Tintin, of a blessed trio of supreme mysterysolvers who rely more on wit than brawn – and whose creators in turn used witty stories to display their talents. Lee Child’s boringly formulaic Jack Reacher stories, considered the modern gold standard for adventure fiction, are in fact its sad declension into mediocrity. What a comedown from Gavin Lyall, Desmond Bagley, and Lionel Davidson, not to mention Donald Hamilton and John D. Macdonald on the American side of the Atlantic. Next to me as I write this is a novel by someone called Nick Petrie, which features his ex-Marine hero Peter Ash. Petrie is considered “the heir to Lee Child,” but all that means is further formulaic militaryfetishizing nonsense, and strings of annoying one-sentence paragraphs. Used to end every dramatic section. As if that conveys tension. Because it is staccato. Like jumbled thoughts. Or gunshots. Implying drama without creating it.

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A very annoying tic. In subpar fiction. By bad writers. In movies, we can readily see the quality difference between real action sequences, sometimes on actually dangerous locations, and the cgi and quick-cut norms that have come to dominate the genre. Some viewers complain about the slow pace of older action movies, but pace is essential to adventure. Hyperkinesis is not tension. It’s cheap, gaudy, and aesthetically meretricious. 8 See Robert Propst, The Office: A Facility Based on Change (Elmhurst, nj: The Business Press, 1968). Also Nikil Saval, “The Cubicle You Call Hell Was Designed to Set You Free,” Wired (23 March 2014), adapted from Saval’s Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (New York: Doubleday, 2014). 9 Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1991). But my favourite parody of cubicle workspace is Ed Park, Personal Days (New York: Random House, 2008). 10 Mark Kingwell, Wish I Were Here: Boredom and the Interface (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). We must distinguish between neoliberal boredom, which is really a fleeing of self via constant stimulation, and philosophical boredom, where unwilled experiences of stasis

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force us to confront our existential situation. Tedium is the condition of temporary stasis that must be relieved as soon as possible. Ironically, the same routines that lead to tedium are replaced by new routines of scrolling, swiping, and posting. Genuine philosophical boredom is more searching and more painful – it cannot be escaped. Tedium invariably belongs to work or work-like functions: often repetitive, unenlivening, calling for almost nothing in the way of human ability. Boredom of the right kind is, by contrast, the most basic of human experiences. When I have nothing to do, what do I do? And who am I? 11 Jerome K. Jerome is the master humourist of this kind of mundane adventure, most famously in Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (1889). 12 Three Days of the Condor, directed by Sydney Pollack, was based on a 1974 James Grady novel called Six Days of the Condor. It is a, sadly rare, adventure with a cynical conclusion: The Network is eventually revealed but as unassailable in its total influence. The film’s final scene, about the complicity of the press in the whole network of money and power, was probably at least as influential on my becoming a political critic as anything I read in college. And how great is it that Max von Sydow, the knight who played chess with Death in Bergman’s

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The Seventh Seal (1958), is the main assassin! I loved the idea that the Redford character, with his tweed jacket and blue button-down shirt, had a job just reading for a living. His midtown-Manhattan backdoor deli-run for lunch orders, exempting him from the hit on the little brownstone cia outpost, is the equivalent of Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) appearing to answer a page for George Kaplan in the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Bar (North By Northwest). These minor narrative slippages set the ensuing adventure in motion, bringing the mundane man into contact with The Network. There are, in passing, some great Holmesian details: Redford’s character spots that a postman is not real, is in fact an assassin, because his shoes are the wrong colour. 13 A cynical joke in season five of the Los Angeles crime drama Ray Donovan (2013–20) shows a hyperactive screenwriter pitching his gay Black superhero plot because, he says, there are already enough merely Black superheroes. I’m not sure that intersectionality advocates had this sort of endgame in mind. Northstar, meanwhile, is the Canadian character often credited as the first openly gay comic-book superhero. Fans will know that he joins Alpha Flight, the government-sponsored (of course!) elite squad meant to capture Wolverine, who is in turn the best-known Canadian comic-book character,

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especially as depicted by Australian actor/workout king Hugh Jackman. Northstar’s premutant human name is Jean-Paul Beaubier, a Montreal-born orphan who in youth performs in circuses, skis at an elite level, and joins the Quebec-separatist Front de libération du Québec. One fan website just tags him as “Olympic Gay Mutant Québécois Terrorist.” Awesome! 14 Fans will know that one of the central plotlines of the series was that Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) falls in love with Angel (David Boreanaz), a handsome vampire possessed of remnants of his human soul and therefore subject to remorse – and romantic attachment. The upshot of this longsimmering love affair is, in one sense, that Angel got his own spin-off series where he becomes, in effect, a second-order noir private detective “helping the helpless” (1999–2004). Both characters continued life after television in comic-book series and an expanding fanfic universe. Of course they did. 15 Robert Munsch, The Paper Bag Princess, with illustrations by Michael Martchenko (Toronto: Annick Press, 1980), has sold more than seven million copies worldwide and has been acclaimed by, among others, Chelsea Clinton and the US National Organization for Women. The princess’s happy dance as she abandons her vain princely swain, after outwitting the he-dragon by making

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him show off to the point of exhaustion, is an inspiration to many a nonstandard hero, female or male. The book belongs on every bookshelf. 16 I hope readers will forgive another piece of selfreference here: I explore these various adventurous bargains with contingency in Mark Kingwell, On Risk (Windsor, on: Biblioasis, 2020). 17 Ruritania is the fictional European country where Anthony Hope set his popular romance novel The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). Nowadays it connotes any fantastic or romantic story set in a fictional European country, including both serious and parodic versions: Eric Ambler’s chilling The Mask of Dimitrios (1939), say, as well as Leonard Wibberley’s Cold War satire The Mouse That Roared (1955, film adaptation 1959 with Peter Sellers in three roles). Apophenia is a condition, first diagnosed in 1958 by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad, in which a person sees multiple connections among all experienced things. The novels of Thomas Pynchon are a good example of apophenic adventure. I explore the topic in more detail in the introductory essay for a special issue on apophenic adventures of Queen’s Quarterly 127:1 (Spring 2020): 7–18. Meanwhile, “the paranoid style in American politics,” as Richard Hofstadter memorably called it in a 1964 Harper’s Magazine essay, is a volatile commodity. It fuels conspiracy theories, bizarre QAnon or Pizzagate-

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style news memes, and other kinds of bad craziness. But the urge to make sense of it all – to believe that the world in fact does make sense, despite all efforts to obscure that – resides deep in the human soul. Is pursuing all-encompassing meaning, in some crazy respect, the most profound adventure of all? Some of these examples are Josh’s, some are mine. Feel free to add your own! Season 1, episode 10 (2013). Helmuth von Moltke, in Daniel J. Hughes and Harry Bell, trans., Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (New York: Presidio Press, 1993). Also the title of a 2016 album by jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter. Often revised in online memes to read “until they get punched in the face.” I prefer “mouth” myself, as in “smash-mouth football.” C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brian are the acknowledged masters of naval adventure, in the Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin series respectively. Alistair MacLean and Trevanian (R.W. Whitaker) are probably the best mountain-and-ice writers. Gavin Lyall, a very underrated master of the thriller, writes the best airborne adventures. Ian Fleming covers all terrains. The genius of living room adventures, meanwhile, is an unclaimed title – maybe Salinger or Cheever or Updike? Yes, let’s go with Updike.

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23 Nietzsche shows us that an abyss at once calls to us and frightens us away. The visceral feelings evoked by looking down, vertigo or nausea, capture this sickening sensation of gazing into blackness. And so then the looking up and out – the romantic ideal of the mountaintop – is a kind of exultant reversal of ground. It is no mistake that the editors at Penguin Classics chose to use the famous Caspar David Friedrich painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) as the cover image for their edition of Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo (written 1888, published 1908). An online caricature reworks that familiar cover with the title rendered as Asshole King of Dick Mountain. Not everyone appreciates a book whose chapter titles include “Why I Am So Clever,” “Why I Write Such Excellent Books,” and “Why I Am Dynamite.” 24 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight trans. (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1986; orig. Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 3 vols., 1954–59). Bloch’s analysis of the omnipresence of a utopian impulse in all creative activity is considered a key bridge between orthodox Marxism and other, less secular schools of thought. 25 Derrida discussed hope – sometimes “hope beyond hope” – in a number of sources. A good introduction, which argues (contra Richard Rorty) that

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Derrida’s notion of hopeless hope is socially utopian yet nevertheless politically effective, is Mark Dooley, “Private Irony vs. Social Hope: Derrida, Rorty, and the Political,” Cultural Values 3 (March 2009): 263–90. 26 Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2006). I think of that moment in Jeremiah Johnson (1972), when the Robert Redford character, asked where he’ll go now that his ongoing battle with the Crow is over, looks into the distance and says, “Canada, maybe?” His Canada is not exactly a real place, more the clustered myths of Mountie and trapper adventure stories. Imagination is what first guides us from frontier to frontier. 27 The idea of West, as with the idea of North, is inherently mythological. Karl May, the prolific German author of tales of the American West, never set foot in North America. Relying on guidebooks, James Fenimore Cooper’s fiction, and other dubious sources, he published a long series of books featuring the Apache warrior Winnetou and his white “blood-brother,” Old Shatterhand. Any German of a certain age has had their views of the American Old West entirely shaped by these fictions. During his prolific career, May used as many as ten different pseudonyms, including Capitan Ramon Diaz de la Escosura and D. Jam, the first

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a bit of Iberian twaddle and the second a hip-hop handle avant la lettre. Authorship as its own kind of shape-shifting adventure! 28 Antiheroes deserve a dedicated separate study. Suppose the espionage novel is an evolutionary spur of the picaresque. Then consider James Bond (Ian Fleming), Matt Helm (Donald Hamilton), Alec Leamas and George Smiley (John le Carré), Harry Palmer (Len Deighton), or any of the protagonists of classic spy and thriller stories. They are alone except for various hangers-on and temporary accomplices, they have constant deathly challenges to face, and the narrative action moves them relentlessly forward – to an uncertain and often dissatisfying conclusion. Loneliness is the most salient feature of these dark neopicaresques. Here we can also observe yet another reversal or counternarrative: the evil picaresque hero. Hannibal Lecter might be the bizarro version of James Bond, omnicompetent and suave, a psychopath in service of his own aesthetic ends rather than his country’s confused policy goals. Meanwhile, the question of whether Bond is himself a psychopath or sociopath is the subject of an ongoing media conversation. Sidenote: Deighton’s Palmer is distinguished among spies as a good cook. Deighton himself began an illustrated cookery column collected in

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his Action Cook Book (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009; orig. 1965), whose cover features a handsome spy, complete with shoulder-holstered sidearm, being caressed by a beautiful woman as he cooks pasta. (I have a copy of this little treasure.) 29 George Saunders’s 2011 short story “My Chivalric Fiasco” (Harper’s Magazine [September 2011], 69–72) deploys the endgame of this inversion. A Medieval theme park employee is given a drug, KnightLyfe, that makes him talk and behave like a champion of high chivalry, bent on avenging the honour of an (actually) raped co-worker. The story works by way of sly linguistic shifts, from the boredom of enervating tourist employment to the flowery style of integrity and courtly courage – followed by hangover and withdrawal. Nabokov’s Pale Fire (New York: Putnam, 1962) is a comic Ruritanian picaresque, usefully taken together with his Pnin (New York: Heinemann, 1957), the very model of an antiheroic quest narrative, which nevertheless manages to be poignant as well as funny. Lolita (New York: Olympia, 1955) is then parseable, once its road trip narrative begins, as a culture-critical adventure. This is especially evident in the 1962 Stanley Kubrick film adaptation, which renders the story a nasty precursor to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (New York: Viking, 1957). 30 Kingsley Amis’s take on The Metamorphosis is

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worth noting. After referencing Dostoevsky and Poe, he avers that Kafka’s tale is the perfect depiction of a severe alcoholic hangover. There is, he says, “a telling touch in the nasty way everyone goes on at the chap.” See Amis, Everyday Drinking (London: Bloomsbury, 2008). The scenario is a variation on Kafka’s parable “Before the Law,” which occupies a central place in The Trial. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). In philosophy, two prominent defences of the narrative self can be found in Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (South Bend, in: Notre Dame University Press, 1981) and Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1989). Galen Strawson, “Against Narrativity,” Ratio XVII (December 2004): 428–52. See also Samantha Vice, “Literature and the Narrative Self,” Philosophy 78:303 (January 2003): 93–108. The latter’s objections are more subtle, noting the tendency we all exhibit to self-centre within a narrative conception of self. (Is it a narrative quirk that both these philosophers once hailed from the University of Reading in southern England?) If one favours a Lacanian take on all this, Slavoj

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Žižek’s Looking Awry (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1991) is excellent. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990). Richard Lovelace, “To Althea, From Prison” (1642). Lovelace, behind bars for his efforts to annul the Bishops Exclusion Act, meant that love could make him free even while incarcerated. The corollary meaning is that those who appear free may be in fact imprisoned. The latter two display Steve McQueen in vastly different registers, a decade apart; the first features Patrick McGoohan’s forehead in a key supporting role. See Mark Kingwell, “Patrick McGoohan,” HiLoBrow (19 March 2011). A quest often associated with Nietzsche but stretching back at least to the lyrical injunctions of ancient Greek poet Pindar (c. 518–438 bce). Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, Paul Patton trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994; orig. Différence et Répétition, 1968). In the City of Love’s Sleep (London: Faber & Faber, 2018), 315. For a lively scholarly study of these books, see Eli Cook, “Rearing Children of the Market in the ‘You’ Decade: Choose Your Own Adventure Books and the Ascent of Free Choice in 1980s America,” Journal of American Studies (12 February 2020). Cook’s

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thesis that “the incredible success of solely textbased cyoa books stemmed largely from the cultural ascent of individual market choice to the heart of American notions of agency, liberty, subjectivity and selfhood in the 1970s and 1980s” strikes me as provocative but somewhat procrustean. 43 Alfred Korzybski famously warned that “the map is not the territory” (Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics [London: International Non-Aristotelian Library, 1933], 747–61). And yet, what else do we have to go on? Maps are a key element of fantastic adventure, just as they are in road trips and military patrols. They are especially fetching when included as endpapers in a book of adventure or hunt. They presage the drama, priming us for way finding and coordinate fixing. In our age of smartphone-gps, map reading is a difficult, maybe disappearing, skill. When there is no map for life, or gps for identity, you must make it up as you go, sector by sector. Final note for completists: the deep-cover cia agent played by Robert De Niro in John Frankenheimer’s Ronin (1998) quotes Korzybski’s maxim when working out a violent smash-and-grab operation with dubious endgames. The film’s title refers to the drifting or wandering samurai who have failed to protect their master: the ultimate solitary

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adventurer, sellsword, or mercenary. But lately ronin is also, in a rather neat work-idea inversion, common Japanese slang for an unemployed salaryman or a high school graduate with no university place. Wandering talent …

THE ADVENTURER 1S GLOSSARY

For Susan, Patrick, Dooley, Kent, Papo, Kevin, and other dauntless companions.

The Adventurer’s Glossary joshua g lenn

0-DARK-HUNDRED

Military jargon (pronounced “oh dark hundred”) referring not to any particular hour but generally to the hours between midnight and daylight – i.e., a period during which the rest of the world may be asleep, but you’re awake, alert, and on duty. See: vigilant 1 (MARK)

If you know that mark (or marque) can mean “a particular model of a manufactured product,” then you’ll understand why the first version of a weapon or military vehicle is often titled the Mark I or Mark 1. In Vietnam

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War–era military jargon, Mark I means “basic, unmodified, or unsurpassable,” which is to say, old-fashioned in a good way. A mark one eyeball, for example, is an inspection made with direct human vision. 187

The number of that section of California’s penal code that legally defines the crime of murder was adopted by Los Angeles gang members as a synonym for the act itself. Pronounced “one-eight-seven” or “one-eightyseven,” the term 187 would become common in hip-hop lingo. 1%ER

This example of biker argot refers to a vanishingly small subset of motorcycling enthusiasts disinclined to abide by the rule of law. Police officers who ride motorcycles while off duty will often sport exculpatory patches proclaiming them to be law-abiding 99%ers. 1-UP

In gaming, a “life” (also known as a “chance” or a “try”) is a play-turn that ends when a player’s

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avatar loses all of its health points. Following the convention established in the 1980s by the game Super Mario Bros., gamers sometimes call an extra life a 1-up. 411

Since the 1930s, 4-1-1 has served as the telephone number, in Canada and the United States, for local directory assistance. The slang expression 411 (pronounced “four-one-one”) means “relevant information.” In military argot, 411 refers to the briefing prior to one’s mission. See: beta 5 BY 5

In midcentury military radio communications, this utterance meant “loud and clear.” Derived from a numerical scale measuring the strength and clarity of radio reception, the idiom was a response to “Testing, one, two, three, four.” Five by five has since evolved to mean “perfect, fine,” and is a general statement – popularized, in the ’90s, by Joss Whedon’s cult tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer – of readiness for action. See: a-ok, roger that

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5-0

In streetwise vernacular, this is one of the less insulting nicknames for a police officer. Although it’s fun to speculate that the term was derived from the popularity of 5.0 litre Ford Mustangs among police departments, “five-oh” is most likely a begrudgingly admiring reference to the police work seen on the long-running tv show Hawaii Five-O. Related terms: barney, bizzie, blue meanie, chazzer, copper, fuzz, rozzer, etc. 6 (DEEP)

When measuring the depth of water with a sounding line, if the depth was 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, or 20 fathoms, a ship’s leadsman would call “by the mark,” followed by the number; for any other depth, he’d instead call “by the deep.” Literally, then, the nautical expression deep six indicates a depth of 6 fathoms. During wwi, however, the phrase acquired its idiomatic meaning of “toss overboard, sink to the bottom of the sea.” Fun fact: Samuel Clemens’s nom de plume Mark Twain indicates a depth of 2 fathoms.

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6 (WATCH YOUR)

In wwi- and wwii-era air force jargon, six o’clock meant “directly behind.” (Twelve o’clock high, a phrase used as the title of a great wwii movie about the US Army’s Eighth Air Force, means “approaching from directly ahead and above” – that is to say, from an enemy pilots’ preferred angle of attack.) So watch your six means “watch your back, because nobody’s covering it,” while I’ve got your six means “I’m covering you.” 8-BALL (BEHIND THE)

Although one might assume that it derives from the pool game eight ball, in fact the 1910sera underworld expression behind the 8-ball – which means “in trouble, stymied or thwarted, at a disadvantage” – derives from an earlier game, kelly pool. Reportedly invented by a Chicagoan nicknamed Kelly, the game was most disadvantageous to those players randomly assigned balls numerically higher than eight. ps: In wwii-era Marines argot, an eightball squad is a platoon section made up of troublemakers. See: fluke, put english on

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9-MONTH INJURY

In roller derby, these days a mostly female diy athletic contest – which was first developed in the 1930s when Damon Runyon persuaded a promoter to change his marathon roller-skating race into a full-contact team sport – pregnancy is referred to, jocularly, and sometimes not so jocularly, as a player’s 9-month injury. #10 CAN

In the world of doomsday preppers, homesteaders, and survivalists, a #10 can, which is approximately 7 x 6¼ inches and specially formulated for long-term food storage, offers as much, if not more psychological relief than a Remington 742 Woodmaster rifle, a Sawyer Mini Filtration System, or a poop bucket full of kitty litter. 11TH HOUR

In Jesus’s Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, day labourers hired at the eleventh hour (i.e., near the very end of the day) are paid the same wage as those who were hired at the first hour. The point is that God saves us by grace, not our worthiness. The eleventh hour has come

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to mean “at the last moment, when all hope of reprieve is lost.” 20 (WHAT’S YOUR)

In the 1930s and ’40s, law enforcement and cb radio users employed “ten-codes” to represent common phrases. The phrase 10-4, for example, means “Acknowledged, I’ll do it,” while 10-20 or What’s your 20 means “Where are you?” These codes were popularized by the 1950s tv show Highway Patrol, then repopularized by 1970s trucker movies like Smokey and the Bandit, White Line Fever, Convoy, and High-Ballin’. 99

In US Navy argot, 99 means “all hands” – i.e., everyone. Pronounced “niner niner,” the expression is used by air traffic controllers; when “99” is heard on the radio following a unit’s call sign, it means that the transmission is pertinent to all aircraft in that unit. A NO. 1

This example of early nineteenth-century nautical jargon, meaning “first-class, outstanding,” is a figurative alteration of A1, a grade awarded a seagoing vessel – by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping – found by inspectors to be first-class in

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respect of both hull and fittings. ps: The wwiiera military slang fucking-A is short for fucking A-number-one right. A -OK

Air Force Lt Col John Powers, public affairs officer for Project Mercury, which introduced the world to America’s first astronauts, popularized this term, which means, “perfect, no problems,” when he borrowed it from nasa engineers – who, because “A” is a sharper sound than “O,” employed it during radio transmission tests. ps: The phrase all systems go, meaning “ready for action,” also emerged from Project Mercury. See: 5 by 5, roger that ABSQUATUL ATE

This piece of macaronic and jocular Latin, popular in the Old West, means to duck out of one’s obligations, skip town without saying goodbye. Often used to describe someone who has decamped or absconded while in possession of stolen goods. See: light out, vamoose

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ABLE SUGAR

In the five-nation joint military phonetic spelling alphabet of 1943, Able represents “A,” while Sugar represents “S.” Able Sugar, then, was military slang for “AS” – which is to say, “apeshit.” In 1956, nato updated the alphabet, substituting Bravo for Baker, for example, and Sierra for Sugar; you can figure out for yourself what Bravo Sierra means. See: oscar mike, whiskey tango foxtrot ACE

Although this slang term has been used since the eighteenth century to describe a person who excels in a particular field or activity, or who enjoys a reputation for doing the impossible, during wwi it was specifically employed to mean “a pilot or aerial gunner who has shot down many enemy aircraft.” ps: Since the Lafayette Escadrille days, five destroyed enemy aircraft has been considered the threshold for ace status. See: crackerjack ACROSS LOTS

An Old West idiom meaning, literally, “across pieces of land (instead of sticking to the road),” and figuratively, “the fastest way possible.” The

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phrase was popularized by the colourful curse, “Go to Hell across lots!” Which, if you think about it, is exactly what the protagonist of John Cheever’s 1964 suburban-noir story “The Swimmer” ends up doing. ACTION

Derived from the Latin actio (act of doing), the term action indicates fast and furious activity – whether violent or not. (While Iago, in Othello, uses action in reference to combat, in Henry IV, pt. 1, Prince Hal uses it in reference to a night of drinking.) Action-oriented videogames test a player’s hand-eye coordination and reflexes; action movies test a viewer’s capacity to keep up with nonstop running, jumping, and fighting. Quick-wittedness is helpful in action scenarios, but thoughtfulness is unnecessary. See: adventure ACTION MAN

In 1966, the British toy company Palitoy launched an “action figure” – a copy of the American company Hasbro’s G.I. Joe – under this moniker. When asked about the Summer of Love, which happened when he was ten, the antihippie punk Sid Vicious once sneered, “I

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was too busy playing with my Action Man.” Today, the moniker action man is used in the UK sarcastically, i.e., to mock as childish and backward those who aspire to a life of action. ACTION STATIONS

Before the twentieth century, when a war ship’s captain desired all hands to report to their positions immediately, i.e., in preparation for combat, they’d order the ship “beat to quarters” – and a particular drum roll would be played. Drums were replaced, in the early twentieth century, by klaxons or bells; and during wwi, the phrase action stations replaced beat to quarters. Today, the directive can command any sort of intense anticipatory activity. ACTION SURVIVOR

The wiki (collaborative website) tv Tropes, which invites pop culture aficionados to identify those tropes commonly used to tell stories, uses this phrase to describe everyman characters who aren’t born great – but who have greatness thrust upon ’em. Think of H.G Wells’s protagonists, say, or Bilbo Baggins or Shaun in Shaun of the Dead.

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ACUMEN

Sharpness-related analogies are often used to describe a person’s quickness of perception or discernment. The term acumen, which is Latin for “sharp point” and which means “the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions,” demonstrates the transitive phenomenon whereby adventurers are often described in terms of their equipment – in this case, that is to say, the business end of a sword or spear. See: eager, edge ADROIT

Because of the prejudice, in medieval France, for the trained right (droit) hand versus the clumsy left, the French term adroit came to mean, literally, “dextrous in the use of hands” and figuratively, “dextrous in the exercise of the mental faculties.” In the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of adroit – “exhibiting skill and readiness in avoiding danger or escaping difficulty” – is particularly adventure-apt. See: dexterity ADVENTURE

An adventure is a risky endeavour the outcome of which is unknown. That last bit is crucial;

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every true adventure involves not merely action but a venturesome, hopeful X-factor – a risk to be dared, a discovery to be made, a puzzle to be solved, a mystery to be cracked. Derived from the Latin advenire (arrive), the term developed the sense of “that which happens or befalls unexpectedly.” Viewed through this lens, absurd coincidences and lucky occurrences are features, not bugs, of adventure stories. See: action, chance, lucky AERO

Compressible flow, turbulence, boundary layer … Those athletes for whom minimal wind resistance is crucial don’t need to understand the science of aerodynamics. They simply require that their gear, vehicles, and shaven legs, etc., be as aero as possible. AGENT

Philosophically speaking, an agent – the term derives from the Latin agere (“to act”) and literally means “the doer of an action” – is a person who acts upon someone or something, rather than being acted upon. Agency, then, is one’s capacity to act in any given situation or environment. This sense of freedom from constraint, of an ability to move and act according

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to one’s own purposes, gave rise to the nineteenth-century sense of the term – that is, a purposeful type to whom a business or government organization can confidently assign a mission impossible. See: mission AGGRO

Aggro, a slang term popular among juvenile delinquents from Los Angeles to London since the late 1960s, is derived from aggressive – which suggests “menacing, pushy.” Behaviour described as aggro is loud, intimidating, and violence-threatening. In gaming, as in any group endeavour, it’s important to manage aggro among a party’s members. AGONISTIC

To be agonistic is to be fiercely competitive, forever striving to overcome one’s peers; the term is derived from the Greek for “contestant.” Nietzsche, who believed that the excellence of ancient Greek civilization could be chalked up to its agonistic culture, claimed that one’s best friend should also be one’s worst – most challenging – enemy.

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE

In aviation, the interaction between drag and airspeed can be plotted on a curve; to be ahead of the power curve is therefore to maintain good speed and altitude. In the 1920s, this technical jargon became a colloquialism meaning “better than predicted”; now, it’s chiefly used in jargon-friendly business contexts, by those looking to anticipate developments. See: push the envelope AL AL A

While banging their weapons against their shields, ancient Greek hoplites (foot soldiers) would break into a full-throated battle cry of “Alala!” or “Eleleu!” as soon as they were within striking distance of their foes. The resulting din was demoralizing. See: barritus AL ARM

The term alarm – “the hurried agitation of feeling which springs from a sense of immediate and extreme exposure,” according to the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary – is derived from the French military cry à l’arme [to arms!]. This sense of alarm lingers on in the use of the word to mean “a warning sound”;

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those of us who feel consternation and dismay when the alarm clock goes off in the morning will understand. ALERT

The French military phrase à l’herte – which means, literally, “standing on a height,” i.e., from which superior vantage point one can remain vigilantly on the lookout – gave us alert, which is to say, “engaged in close observation of a situation, event, or one’s surroundings.” As a noun, the term means “an alarm from a real or threatened attack.” See: vigilant ALL AHEAD BENDIX

Although on modern seagoing vessels the control handle on the bridge acts as a direct throttle, until wwii a ship’s pilot would use an engine order telegraph to signal orders such as “Full Ahead” or “Full Astern.” Many such devices were manufactured by the firm Bendix. So when a pilot would push the telegraph’s handle all the way forward, the indicator on the face of its dial would end up pointing at the Bendix logo … which gives us the idiom All Ahead Bendix, indicating the speaker’s demand for

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maximum thrust. ps: Among fighter pilots, firewall means, similarly, “push throttle to its forward limit.” ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL

Alexandre Dumas (père) didn’t invent the intrepid phrase all for one, one for all – which we find previously in Latin and in Shakespeare. But the French version un pour tous, tous pour un was made famous by his 1844 adventure The Three Musketeers. Narratives that could be described as all for one, one for all adventures are those in which individuals from divergent backgrounds – ethnic, racial, national, planetary – come together as one. ps: The online acronym 14aa41, which means the same thing, reverses the phrasing. ALL AHU AKBAR

Although the Takbir, as this common Arabic expression is known, has been used historically as a battle cry and is best known in the West today for its use by Islamist extremists and terrorists, it simply means “God is the greatest.” It is employed by Muslims in many everyday contexts – to express faith, distress, joy, or determination.

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ALLEGRO

In musical terminology, allegro (Italian for “cheerful”) is a tempo marking that indicates a brisk, sprightly, joyful execution. John Milton’s c. 1645 poem “L’Allegro” uses the term philosophically – to promote a life full of “Jest and youthful Jollity, / Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, / Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles.” Which sounds fun. ALLIGATORS (UP TO ONE’S EARS IN)

Following the 2016 election of a reptilian US president who promised on the campaign trail to “drain the swamp,” the entire world found itself in the dire situation described by this fanciful nineteenth-century slang phrase, which means “in a dangerous or hopelessly confused situation.” Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin, we miss you now more than ever. ALPHA STRATEGY

A 1980 self-published book by “voluntaryist” (anarcho-capitalist) commentator John Pugsley popularized the notion of developing an alpha strategy for one’s family – that is to say, storing

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extra food and household goods as a hedge against inflation, and for use in barter and charity, should “fiat currency” (legal tender whose value is backed by the government that issues it) become worthless when the state collapses. An “omega strategy,” one imagines, would involve hunting postapocalyptic mutants. AMAZON

An Amazon is a member of the mythical Scythian nation of all-female warriors whose battlefield prowess was a popular subject in ancient Greek and Roman art. The notion that the term is Greek for “lacking a breast” (a-mastos), because Amazonian archers supposedly lopped off their right breasts in the name of military efficacy, is – sorry! – folk etymology. The originally non-Greek term is perhaps derived from the Iranian compound ha-maz-an [one fighting together]. AMBUSH

This fourteenth-century piece of military terminology, meaning “troops concealed in a stand of trees, in order to surprise and fall unexpectedly upon an enemy,” is derived from the Vulgar Latin imbosco (in the woods). “By ambushed men behind their temple laid,” a

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character in Dryden’s 1665 drama about the fall of Tenochtitlan (capital of the Aztec Empire, now Mexico City) reports, “We have the king of Mexico betrayed.” ps: In the Old West, a soldier or bandit who ambushed victims was known as a bushwhacker. ANTIHERO

In Anatomy of Criticism, the Canadian literary theorist Northrop Frye opined that the nineteenth-century shift from narratives starring a traditional hero to those starring an antihero who, although he may do the right thing, lacks such heroic qualities as idealism, morality, or even courage, demonstrates the triumph of the ironic mode. Viewed through this lens, nearly all modern adventure stories – beginning in 1814, one might argue, with Walter Scott’s Waverley – are in some way poking fun at the very idea of heroism. See: antihero (’90s), hero ANTIHERO (’90S)

Although plenty of the antiheroes of pulp fiction, film noir, action movies, and spaghetti

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westerns of the 1920s through the early 1980s were misanthropic, violent sociopaths, the onenamed, nihilistic antiheroes who emerged in the mid-1980s and the 1990s – Blade, Deadpool, Lobo, Riddick, Rorschach, Spawn, et al. – were all but indistinguishable from villains. Small wonder that comics fans describe this era, which is said to have begun in 1986 with the publication of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen, as the “Dark Age of Comic Books.” See: antihero APLOMB

Coined in 1806 by the ballet master JeanÉtienne Despréaux, to refer to the dynamic balancing crucial to ballet positions and movement, aplomb literally means “perpendicularity.” Despréaux’s reference was the carpenter’s term à plomb (i.e., according to the plummet, the lead weight that is attached to a line and used to determine vertical alignment). Figuratively, aplomb describes a graceful (not swaggering) assurance of manner or action; this sort of poise is very attractive in an adventurer. See: steazy

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ARGONAUT

When the mythical Greek prince Jason recruited an agonistic crew of talented misfits, including Heracles, Orpheus, and possibly the fleet-footed Atalanta, to accompany him on a quest for the Golden Fleece, they embarked aboard the good ship Argo. To be an argonaut (-naut means “sailor”), then, is to be an intrepid voyager. The author of this glossary calls any quarrelsome gathering of talents who share a single purpose and who temporarily live and work together – from the Beatles to the Yippies, from Dada to Black Mountain College – an Argonaut Folly. ARMPIT SLICKS

The lurid covers of midcentury men’s adventure magazines – e.g., Ace, All Man, Bold, Brave, Danger, Daring, Fury, Peril, Rugged, Sir! – tended to feature sweaty men slugging it out with villains, fending off animal attacks, and braving the elements. All that perspiration led folks who worked in publishing or distribution to refer to these mags, jocularly, as armpit slicks.

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ARTFUL DODGER

The adolescent pickpocket Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger, is a character from Dickens’s Oliver Twist – and not a virtuous character, either. However, readers can’t help but cheer the rascal on as he deftly evades pursuers, only to pop up again triumphantly. As a result, even sympathetic characters on the run – see Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped or John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, for example – can be considered grownup artful dodgers. See: dodge ASTUTE

To be astute is to be critically discerning, discriminating – but in a streetwise way. The Latin astus (“cunning, guile”), from which the English word derives, seems to have been borrowed from the Greek ἄστυ (town). The term is inherently associated with urban savvy; an astute character is subtle, wily – one who plays chess while less wised-up types play checkers. See: streetwise, wit ATAVISM

The reappearance of an ancestral trait – a striking nose, say – is known, among biologists, as atavism. The term comes from the Latin atavus

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(a great-grandfather’s grandfather). Atavistic adventure stories are ones in which the savage, pagan powers of the past become manifest in a mild-mannered protagonist. Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan stories, and other atavistic yarns reassure readers that a warrior spirit lurks inside modern men. In the era of the Proud Boys, this sort of romantic fantasy has become increasingly unattractive. ATTACK

Attack, which means, “a violent action against a person, place, or enemy forces,” is derived from the Frankish stakka (stick). Ouch! The term’s etymology is so viscerally physical – one thinks of the bone-wielding hominid in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – that figurative usages (such as “attack of the flu”) seem misguided. ps: One may assail by use of missile weapons, assault by direct personal violence, or invade by entering another’s space. Attack is the generic term. ATTENTION (PAY)

The early nineteenth-century expression pay attention suggests that our attention, a term ultimately derived from the Latin ad (toward)

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+ tendere (stretch), is a prize claimed by … whatever it is towards which we feel compelled to stretch our observant faculties. When we attend to something patiently, mindfully, we will receive the prize of deep, rich knowledge. This sort of adventure is a quiet one. “To hear,” suggests the sage Ogion, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1968 fantasy novel The Wizard of Earthsea, “one must be silent.” AUDACIT Y

In our antiheroic era, a number of formerly pejorative terms like this one, which is derived from the Latin audax (bold, daring) and which means “boldness to the point of recklessness, without regard for consequences,” are now used without condemnation. Audacious people are unrestrained by the principles of decorum, morality, or common sense – they’re disrespectful, hotheaded, self-destructive – and yet somehow we admire them for it. See: bold AUSPICIOUS

An auspex, in ancient Rome, was one who observed the flight of birds in order to take omens for the guidance of affairs; the term is derived ultimately from avis (bird) plus -spex

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(observer). Something auspicious betokens future success; it’s a good omen. See: jinx AVENGER

During the eighteenth century, gothic melodramas – in which modern society’s constitutional law was portrayed as too corrupt and slow to punish injustice – gave us the avenger, a fierce, self-appointed authority figure who arises to punish evil. The term is from the Latin ad + vindicare (punish, liberate, defend – depending on the context). Dumas’s 1844–46 The Count of Monte Cristo revived interest in avenger characters … leading to Zorro, the Lone Ranger, Batman, and other fictional vigilantes. ps: The term revenge connotes not just retribution but merely malicious retaliation. See: vengeance, vigilante BAD

An early African American slang term, still in use today, meaning “very tough, formidable.” In Irving Jones’s 1894 ragtime song “Possumala Dance,” a tough gent introduces himself like so: “My name is George Good Health / I’m so bad,

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I’m afraid of myself.” ps: A Big Bad – a reference to the fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood – is, among the creators of tv series since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a major villain. BADASS

In our antiheroic era, the term badass – a quality of personality or behaviour inspiring not merely respect but fear and awe – is used admiringly. See, for example, the 2013 self-help book You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. (Ugh.) Originally, however – which is to say, in midcentury US military slang – a badass was a dangerous person, a bully who enjoyed picking fights. See: kick ass BAIL

In the cultures of surfing and skating, there is no shame in bailing – i.e., abandoning a move or trick midway through it because you realize you’re about to wipe out. As Falstaff puts it, in Henry IV, pt. 1, “The better part of Valour, is Discretion”; this may not actually be the case, when it comes to combat, but it’s true of extreme sports. Surfers adapted the term from

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the 1920s colloquialism bail out (make an emergency descent by parachute); aviators, meanwhile, had borrowed the term from boatbailing sailors. BALDHEADED

During the nineteenth century, when it was considered the height of folly to go out hatless on a day threatening rain or snow, this New England slang term meant “without forethought, recklessly.” Joni Mitchell’s 1977 song “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” revives the term in the couplet “Those two bald-headed days in November / Before the first snowflakes sail.” Note that Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, the Rock, and other follicle-challenged action stars have made rushing into things baldheaded look good. See: bold, hair, reckless BALLSY

One of the earliest recorded uses of the vulgar slang term balls to describe virile courage or strength of character is, as one might imagine, a 1920s Hemingway letter. In the 1930s, the

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slang word ballsy was introduced. Today, women and men alike can be described as ballsy; the rocker Joan Jett, for example, claims “Girls have got balls.” ps: The slang expressions balls-out and balls-to-the-wall, both of which mean, “unrestrained, with maximum effort,” date to wwii and the Vietnam War respectively. See: below the belt, nuts BAMBOOZLE

To bamboozle – the term appears in Jonathan Swift’s 1710 article on “the continual Corruption of our English Tongue,” in which he complains (ironically, perhaps) about criminal and Roma jargon finding mainstream popularity – is to deceive by trickery, to cajole by confusing the senses, to mystify. It’s the sine qua non of late capitalism. Also: buffalo, cozen, dupe, gaff, gammon, gull, hoax, hoodwink, hornswoggle, humbug, snooker, or sucker. BAND

A group of people loosely united for a common purpose can be described, using this ancient term related to bond (that with or by which a thing is bound), as a band. The term was originally an opprobrious one used to describe a

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collective of thieves, for example, or assassins. Today, of course, most adventurers relish any suggestion of the disreputable. BANJAX

Irish fighting argot (this particular term means “beat up, batter”) is an endless source of delight. Near-synonyms like steever, clatter, and donnybrook suggest a culture that finds innocent pleasure and a source of humour in the occasional ruckus or brawl – with no hard feelings later. Figuratively, to be banjaxed is to be stymied, ruined. See: irish BANZAI

The Japanese expression “Tenn heika Banzai” (“May His Imperial Majesty Live Ten Thousand Years [i.e., Forever]”) was used in the salutation of Japan’s emperor and as a battle cry. During wwii, Japanese human wave attacks, mounted by infantry units but sometimes including badly wounded and unarmed soldiers, shocked and dismayed the Allied forces – who came to refer to these as banzai charges.

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BARREL (IN THE)

To be in the barrel, in 1930s slang, was to be in trouble. Was this idiom a reference to the suicidal early twentieth-century trend – started in 1901 by American schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor – of going over Niagara Falls inside a barrel? Who knows. The proverbial ease of shooting fish in a barrel also suggests that barrels are best avoided. BARRITUS

In the latter days of the Roman Empire, Roman legions would charge into battle uttering a guttural cry – known as the barritus – borrowed from the Germanic warriors who by that point had joined their ranks. The Roman historian Tacitus noted that legionnaires would hold their shield in front of their mouths, when deploying the barritus, so that the sound would be amplified into a deeper, more terrifying crescendo by the reverberation. See: alala BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

When bad weather threatened, sailors would secure a ship’s hatchways – usually covered by a grill or left open to allow the circulation of

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fresh air – with canvas tarpaulins. The long, flat strips of squared wood used to secure the tarps are battens. The directive batten down the hatches – “Sir, the hatches are b-b-b-battened down,” reports Porky Pig in a 1938 short; “Well, bat ’em down again! I’ll teach those hatches!” responds the Yosemite Sam–like ship’s captain – now means, “Get ready for trouble.” BATTLE RATTLE

In Iraq War–era military jargon, a soldier’s gear – including a flak vest, Kevlar helmet, ammunition, weapons, and other equipment – is known as her battle rattle. The phrase was previously associated with a ship captain’s beat to quarters directive to a drummer. See: fine fettle (in), gear BATTLE ROYALE

Coined to describe cockfights, in the eighteenth century the meaning of the sardonic phrase battle royale expanded to include fisticuffs, sea-going battles, or any other fight that involves many combatants and continues until only one victor remains standing. Sci-fi novels like Marion Zimmer

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Bradley’s Hunters of the Red Moon (1973) have imagined decadent future societies in which this sort of thing becomes common; the Japanese film Battle Royale (2000) and the Hunger Games franchise helped popularize the idea among teens. The blockbuster success of the online game Fortnite: Battle Royale suggests that we are such a decadent future society. BE PREPARED

Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, devised the Scout motto “Be Prepared.” In his 1908 enchiridion Scouting for Boys, BadenPowell explained that this means: “You are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.” Fun fact: It is no accident that the motto’s initials are the same as BadenPowell’s own. BEAM (ON THE)

“Exactly right, thinking correctly,” in wwii-era aviation slang. The phrase evidently refers to the radio beam used to guide pilots through conditions of poor visibility. Now a quaint, archaic phrase, on the beam was revived in the 1980s by the cyborg tv cartoon character Inspector Gadget, whose steampunk motto

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was “A little steam keeps you on the beam!” ps: One who is off the beam is thinking or behaving eccentrically, crazily. BEAU GESTE

The sardonic French phrase beau geste, which dates to c. 1900 and literally means “beautiful gesture,” refers to actions which although perhaps noble in intention, not to mention courageous or self-sacrificing, are meaningless in substance. P.C. Wren’s bestselling 1924 frontier adventure of that title, about honourable brothers who join the French Foreign Legion, and the 1939 movie adaptation starring Gary Cooper as the titular “Beau,” popularized the foreign expression. BELOW THE BELT

In boxing, kickboxing, and the mixed martial arts, a punch or kick that strays low, i.e., below the waistband (“belt”) of one’s opponent’s trunks, is against the rules and dishonourable. Boxing has forbidden strikes to the groin since the “Queensberry Rules” were published in 1867. The expression

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is also used figuratively, to describe anything which is considered abusive, excessively hurtful, or plainly unfair. Also: low blow. BETA

Before sharing helpful details with newbies preparing to attempt climbs that he’d mastered through painful trial and error, the 1980s-era rock climber Jack Mileski would quip, “You want the beta, Max?” (Betamax was a 1970s-era videotape recording format, an unsuccessful rival to vhs.) The term, which has since expanded to refer to technical info relevant to any outdoor adventure, may have originally referred to an engineer’s beta test. See: 411 BITE THE DUST

Samuel Butler’s 1898 translation of Homer’s The Iliad helped popularize the ancient Greek idiom bite the dust – meaning “fall to the ground, fatally wounded” – in English. Fun fact: “Another One Bites the Dust,” the 1980 hit disco song by Queen, has been used to train cpr users to crank out the correct number of chest compressions per minute. See: eat it, grass

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BIVOUAC

The French word bivouac, which as a noun refers to a hastily improvised shelter made of branches, and waterproofed with leaves, and as a verb means “stay in a temporary camp without cover,” is derived from the Swiss German term beiwacht (vigilance at an encampment). Since the 1940s, campers have sometimes shortened the term to bivvy. BL ACK OP

A clandestine operation (“op”) that is not attributable to the organization – whether government agency, military unit, paramilitary outfit, etc. – performing or sponsoring it is known as a black op. American audiences can’t get enough of this sort of thing: Movies from Apocalypse Now to Zero Dark Thirty, not to mention the Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible, Transformers, and Fast & Furious franchises, depict such illicit and often immoral activities. BOGART

Humphrey Bogart, an actor who started out playing gangsters and ended up playing reluctantly heroic private eyes (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep) and antifascist private citizens (All Through the Night, Casablanca), came

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across as so tough that his moniker became a 1950s-era African American slang term meaning “muscle your way in.” Later, the 1968 song “Don’t Bogart Me,” from the Easy Rider soundtrack, suggested that among pot-smokers it’s not acceptable to bogart – commandeer, refuse to share – a joint. BOLD

The term bold – an important one in the world of adventure, e.g., the long-running dc Comics title The Brave and the Bold – derives ultimately from a proto-Indo-European word meaning “to bloat, swell.” A person with a bold temperament, that is to say, is not only fearless and high-spirited but overinflated: contemptuous, arrogant. (“Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice,” the trollish Gratiano is informed, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.) Like audacity, badass, brave, and other pejorative terms now used positively, bold has become a term of high praise. See: bravery, daring, intrepid BOLO PUNCH

A 1924 newspaper story on the Filipino boxer Macario Flores described an unorthodox punch – in which one winds up and throws a

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circular uppercut – as a bolo punch. The expression makes reference to the motion used when clearing vegetation with a bolo (Filipino machete). Fun fact: Sugar Ray Leonard’s deployment of the bolo punch in round seven of 1980’s “No Más Fight” helped him beat Roberto Durán and retain his title. BONK

When an athlete runs out of energy due to glycogen depletion, it’s called a bonk. One’s legs turn to cement; one is overcome by fatigue, dizziness, and a fierce desire to quit. The invented term dates to a 1950s film produced by British Transport Films, warning cyclists to rest and eat a diet adequate in carbohydrates. Also: hitting the wall. BOOF

In kayaker jargon, to boof is to propel one’s kayak over a rock or ledge. The term is onomatopoetic; think of the sound that a hollow kayak makes when it lands heavily. Among canoers, meanwhile, the term is used to describe what happens when you are portaging and the canoe’s yoke snaps – causing the canoe to land on your head.

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BOOTSTRAP

From the Baron Munchausen– esque colloquialism pull oneself up by one’s boot-straps, meaning “better one’s situation by one’s own unaided efforts,” we get the diyer’s verb bootstrap, meaning “make use of existing resources or capabilities.” Employing unlikely resources that one finds at hand is a crucial ability for adventurers to cultivate. But let’s not glamorize so-called bootstrap novels – rags-toriches narratives, celebrating the romance of capitalism – which George Orwell dismissed as “get on or get out” works of propaganda. BOTTLE

Possibly derived from older slang terms like bottle-swagger (drunkard’s courage), the still-popular 1950s-era British colloquialism bottle means “courage, spirit.” To lose one’s bottle is to lose one’s nerve. According to folk etymology, the term is instead derived from the Cockney phrase bottle and glass (arse), and as such implies sphincter control under harrowing conditions.

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BOTTOM

The eighteenth-century British colloquialism bottom describes a racehorse, boxer, or other stalwart figure’s quality of stick-to-itiveness. As John Godfrey’s 1747 Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence explains, “There are two Things required to make this Bottom, that is, Wind and Spirit.” One cannot be said to have bottom, according to Godfrey, unless one’s performance under duress demonstrates both stamina and strength of character. See: guts BOUNCE BOX

Long-distance hikers often lighten the weight of their backpacks by sending a bounce box containing items that aren’t useful on trail, such as a phone charger or change of clothes, ahead to a trail town where they plan to arrive in a week or so. Also called a drift box. BRAVERY

To exhibit bravery – the term comes from the Latin barbarus (savage) by way of the Spanish or Italian bravo (fierce, wild) – is to confront danger without feeling fear, which is to say in blithe disregard of injury or death. In Aristotle’s

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Nicomachean Ethics, such overconfident recklessness is not admired but deplored as an uncivilized vice; however, from the Middle Ages forward we’ve for some reason admired those who heedlessly risk life and limb. See: bold, courage, daring BRAVADO

One archaic definition of brave is “making a fine show or display,” as in Portia’s determination – in The Merchant of Venice – to disguise herself as a swaggering young man “and wear my dagger with the braver grace.” That sense of boastful, even threatening flair and pizzazz survives in the bravery-related Provençal term bravado. A bravo, meanwhile, is a daring villain, a desperado who commands our reluctant admiration by making a thrilling spectacle. BRAWLER

In boxing argot, whereas the stylist remains on the outside edge of an opponent’s punching range, the brawler fights “on the inside.” The former exchanges punches while the latter relies on roughhouse tactics. A brawl, meanwhile, is a noisy and often

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violent disturbance or fistfight; the fifteenthcentury term derives from the French brailler (shout noisily, bray like a donkey). BRAZEN

A brazen person is one figuratively hardened in shamelessness; literally, their face reveals no sign of shame. To brazen it out is to stick to a lie or imposture with self-confidence, despite being rumbled. The term is derived from Old English bræsen (brass) and refers to that material’s hardness. The slang term brass, likewise, means “effrontery, excessive assurance.” ps: The phrase brass balls is notable in combining two slang terms that mean much the same thing. BRICK

This now quaint British slang expression, meaning “a good, solid, substantial person on whom one can rely,” is said to have originated with the quasi-legendary Lycurgus of Sparta. When questioned about the absence of defensive walls around his city-state, Lycurgus – whose reforms promoted equality, military fitness, and austerity – supposedly pointed to his soldiers, and said, “There are Sparta’s walls, and every man is a brick [in them].”

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BRODIE

In 1886, newsboy Steve Brodie claimed to have leaped from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River and survived – the first to do so successfully. The slang term Brodie or do a Brodie came to mean “take a chance or a leap,” particularly a potentially suicidal one. BUCCANEER

During the early seventeenth century, the landless hunters of wild boar and cattle in the largely uninhabited areas of Tortuga and Hispaniola smoked meat over wooden frames called buccans. The corsairs – unlicensed French privateers – who preyed on the Spanish shipping and settlements of the Caribbean purchased smoked meat from these boucaniers … and eventually the Anglicized term buccaneer was used to describe these and other lawless pirates. See: pirate BUCKAROO

In Spanish-speaking parts of the usa, a cowboy was called a vaquero – from vaca (cow). Mispronounced, in the late nineteenth century the term morphed into buckaroo. In the 1930s, the now-quaint term came to mean “spirited young

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man.” It was revived by W.D. Richter’s 1984 movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. See: cowboy BUCKLE DOWN

The nineteenth-century American slang phrase buckle down, which means “get serious about a task,” is descended from the earlier British expressions buckle to and buckle in, which figuratively refer to the buckling of armour in preparation for a contest or battle. ps: The synonymous phrase knuckle down may have originated from the game of marbles. See: fine fettle (in), strap in BUCKSHEE

Baksheesh means “gratuity, gift,” as well as “bribe”; the word is originally Persian but has migrated into other countries and cultures, including India. British soldiers stationed in India during the nineteenth century misheard the term as buckshee and employed it to describe spare items of equipment. US soldiers adopted the term during wwi. In contemporary military usage, buckshee is used to describe equipment or ammunition that may be bartered among soldiers.

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BUG-OUT BAG

Also known among preppers as a go bag, a qrb (Quick Run Bag), a good bag (Get Out Of Dodge), and an inch bag (I’m Never Coming Home), a bugout bag is a portable kit containing the items – e.g., nonperishable food, drinking water, first aid kit, fire-hydrant wrench, camping gear, crank-operated radio and flashlight, folding knife, tampons, hatchet, etc. – that one might require when evacuating from a disaster. BUMP OF DIRECTION

The pseudoscience of phrenology bequeathed us the notion of a literal bump on one’s head indicating an aptitude for finding one’s way. Interestingly, neuroscientists now tell us that internally organized mechanisms of the headdirection system involve “bumps” of juxtaposed neurons along a ring-shaped group in the brain. When our brain – with our body attached – is headed in any particular direction, it seems, a corresponding “bump” of neurons along this compass-ring becomes active.

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BURN RUBBER

The early twentieth-century slang phrase burn rubber, meaning “drive at high speed,” refers to the wearing-down of a vehicle’s tires by high acceleration or the leaving of tire marks on the pavement. Also: lay down rubber, lay a patch. ps: The phrase Keep the rubber side down is biker slang meaning “Stay safe,” i.e., keep your wheels on the road. BURLY

The Scottish dialect term burly, which means “rough, stout, sturdy, strong,” seems to derive from the Old English word borlice (noble, stately – thus, heavily built, bulky). Once used to describe things, it now describes people. ps: In US surfer and skater culture, a burly wave or trick is one that is dangerous but worth the risk of disaster. BURNING DAYLIGHT

Jack London’s best-selling book, in his lifetime, was 1910’s Burning Daylight – the titular character of which was the most successful entrepreneur of the Alaskan Gold Rush, a go-getter who received his nickname on trail “because of his habit of routing his comrades out of their blankets with the complaint that daylight was burn-

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ing.” Today, one mostly hears this complaint uttered on film sets, where natural light is a key commodity. BUSHIDO

The collective term bushido, which means literally “military-knight-way,” refers to the various codes of honour and ideals – e.g., sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, honour above life – that dictated the samurai warrior code in feudal Japan. Influenced by both NeoConfucianism and Zen Buddhism, the unwritten code allowed the samurai’s violent way of life to be tempered by wisdom, calmness, and fairness. See: honour, ronin, samurai BUST A CAP

The slang expression bust a cap, meaning “fire a bullet,” tends to be associated today with gangbangers and hip-hop culture. However, the expression originally dates to the mid-nineteenth century, when percussion caps or primers enabled muzzleloader firearm locks to fire reliably. CAHOOTS (IN)

The nineteenth-century Southern and Western American colloquialism in cahoots means “in

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partnership, in league.” It may derive from the French cohorte (confederates), but a more charming explanation points to the French fur trapper’s word cahute (cabin). One thinks, for example, of Charlie Chaplin as the Lone Prospector and Mack Swain as his ravenous cabin-mate Big Jim holing up together in a cabin in the 1925 silent movie The Gold Rush. CAMARADERIE

The French term camaraderie, which describes a spirit of familiarity, even love, among teammates that goes beyond mere friendship, derives from the Spanish cámara (“bedroom”). As travelling companions know, spending your every waking and sleeping hour together can result in a family-like atmosphere of trust … or, in some circumstances, in deep mutual loathing. CAMEL UP

In order to avoid toting water, marathon runners and cyclists will camel up – that is, drink all the water they can before their ordeal begins. Be careful! Hyponatremia (low blood sodium) is a condition that can befall those human camels whose

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brain cells absorb the excess water in the body, leading to seizures and death. ps: Although some conspiracy theorists claim that Bruce Lee was killed by a “vibrating palm” attack, hyponatremia is more likely. CANNY

The Scottish word canny can mean either “skilful, knowing, prudent” or “overly cautious, sly, shrewd.” Walter Scott, the Scottish historical novelist and playwright who helped introduce many such terms to English readers, used it in the former sense; less sympathetic writers, however, used it in the latter sense – to describe untrustworthy Scots. The multivalent term can also mean “pleasant,” “calm and steady,” or “supernaturally wise.” See: crafty, cunning, savvy CAPER

An illegal or semi-illegal activity or pursuit, approached in the spirit of good fun, is often called a caper. A caper story is an example of crime fiction devoted to a bold, clever theft or swindle, while a caper film is the Hollywood equivalent. The underworld slang term derives from the old English idiom cut a caper, meaning “frolic” or “play a prank.” Spirited conmen

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and thieves, uninterested in everyday crimes, were at one time said to be on the lookout for a proper caper. CARPE DIEM

“Carpe diem,” advises the Roman poet Horace, in his Odes (23 bc), “quam minimum credula postero”; that is: “Seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow.” Although his motto is often misunderstood as a yolo-like exhortation to hedonistic behaviour, Horace was a follower of Epicurus – who claimed that happiness, in its highest form, is a result of living modestly and limiting one’s desires. Take action today, Horace counsels, and your future self will benefit. See: ikigai CATTING

Stealthy, agile, light-footed cats have long served as a kind of spirit animal for burglars. To walk catfoot is to move stealthily. The term cat burglar (a housebreaker who enters by extraordinary feats of climbing) dates to the 1900s, while the 1920s underworld expression catting means “prowling about, scouting an area.” The latter activity is not to be confused with tomcatting – which means “staying out all night, in search of kicks.”

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CAVALIER

In Henry IV, pt. 2, Falstaff ’s crony proposes a toast “to all the cavaleros about London.” The noun cavalier, derived from the Vulgar Latin caballarius (horseman), had by the 1590s come to refer to “a gallant, if overbearing, long-haired and flashily dressed military officer.” (Later, during the English Civil War, it was a term of abuse among the Puritan republicans who fought against King Charles I.) Cavaliers intimidated opponents by remaining unimpressed by danger, which is whence we get the adjective cavalier – meaning “high-spirited, disdainful, offhand.” CHALLENGE

Challenge, which originally meant “confrontation,” shares the same etymology as calumny (“falsification”); both derive from the Latin calumnia (trickery, artifice, misrepresentation). A challenge isn’t merely a difficult task; it’s a task whose difficulty our egos misrepresent to our overcautious superegos as a source of pleasure. Whatever our goal may be, thinking of it as a challenge makes it fun. ps: A challenge seeker, according to the tv Tropes wiki, is a character who – like Zaroff in the 1924 story “The Most Dangerous Game” – constantly seeks new tests.

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CHAMPION

A champion is one who, by defeating all rivals, has obtained an acknowledged supremacy in any game of skill or contest, including – in ancient times – single combat. The Middle English term derives from the Latin campus (a field, a place of action), which suggests a formalized contest from one which one can emerge a clear winner. A heroic champion is one who acts or speaks on behalf of a person or cause. CHANCE

Chance, which is to say fortuity, accident, the unforeseen falling out of events – the ultimate derivation of the term is from the Latin cadentia (falling, e.g., think of tumbling dice) – is adventure’s crucial ingredient. If everything goes perfectly according to plan, if there are no accidents, no opportunities for taking a risk, then your so-called adventure is, in fact, merely an excursion, a jaunt. ps: A chancer adapts to whatever new situation may arrive or evolve. See: adventure, hazard, lucky

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CHANCE ONE’S ARM

The nineteenth-century phrase chance one’s arm, a colourful example of British military argot, which means “perform an action in the face of probable failure,” may seem to suggest one’s reckless willingness to lose a limb in pursuit of a dangerous but worthy goal. However, “arm,” here is an example of metonymic transfer. What the soldier in question risks is not his actual arm but the marks of rank on his sleeve should he be demoted. CHANCE THE DUCKS

To do something and chance the ducks means to do it “come what may, anyhow.” This folksy nineteenth-century idiom was likely inspired by certain ducks’ – stifftails, say, or sea ducks, or pochards – habit of suddenly diving headlong beneath the water’s surface. The 1940s-era colloquialism duck-dive, which was repopularized by surfers in the 1980s, describes exactly such a sudden vertical dive down – usually, to avoid a wave. CHARISMA

In the Bible, the Greek term χάρισμα describes a talent vouchsafed by God, thereby demonstrating one’s authority. It was popularized in

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the 1920s by the German sociologist Max Weber – who deployed charisma to mean “the capacity to inspire devotion or enthusiasm.” In the game Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s charisma modifier affects how successfully she is able to inspire enthusiasm, bluff, and intimidate. A useful trait for adventurers to cultivate. CHIVALRY

The medieval military term chivalry, which has come to mean “the disinterested bravery, honour, and courtesy attributed to the ideal knight,” derives – as with cavalier – from the Latin for “horseman.” (When Lady Percy, in Henry IV, pt. 2, describes how Harry “did all the chivalry of England move / to do brave acts,” she is speaking of his cavalry.) Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century stories of King Arthur, chivalry has inspired much adventure fiction, but the trope has also been mocked at least since Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605–15), the hero of which has read far too many chivalric romances. See: hero, knightly, quixotic CHUTZPAH

In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly – to describe someone who has behaved in an unac-

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ceptable (contrary, insolent, hubristic, even sociopathic) manner. However, by the time it entered American English as a Yiddishism in the 1960s, having been popularized through vernacular use in literature, film, and television, the term had evolved to describe actions which are shameless in a good – plucky, cheeky – sense. The former usage still predominates in Israel. CLEAN ONE’S CLOCK

Before Marie Kondo hipped us to the lifechanging magic of tidying up, Americans had coined innumerable euphemisms for violence (e.g., clean one’s plow, take one to the cleaners) suggesting that getting one’s face punched offers much-needed perspective on how you’ve been spending your time. The idiom clean one’s clock seems to have originally been a piece of US railroad jargon, meaning “bring the train to a sudden stop” – i.e. by applying the airbrakes, thus “cleaning” (resetting) the train’s air gauge (clock). CLOAK AND DAGGER

The melodramatic phrase cloak and dagger, which means “of, concerned with, or characteristic of espionage, assassination, intrigue,” is a

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nineteenth-century translation of the French idiom de cape et d’épée, which described a popular eighteenth-century form of theatre in which murderous characters on clandestine missions would conceal their identities. Charles Dickens popularized the expression via Barnaby Rudge (1841), in which the villainous Mr Chester enquires, rather sardonically, whether a shady messenger bears a cloak and dagger. See: escapade CLOBBERIN’ TIME (IT’S)

The Thing, a founding member of Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four, grew up streetwise on New York’s Lower East Side. His speech mannerisms, including his battle cry It’s clobberin’ time, were inspired by those of the Lower East Side born-and-bred actor and comedian Jimmy Durante. ps: The British slang term clobber, meaning “thumping, beating,” is likely onomatopoeic in origin; supposedly, the word sounds like far-off detonations. See: imperius rex COLDCOCK

To coldcock someone is to knock them senseless (or “out cold”), as with a sudden blow to the

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head – usually from behind, using a blackjack, cosh, or sap, i.e., for felonious purposes. You’ve seen it a million times, in comic books and movies. However, the origin of this underworld slang term, which seems to date to the early twentieth century, remains unknown. COME CORRECT

In African American vernacular, to come correct means “do something in the proper way.” This might mean speaking respectfully to one’s elders or behaving appropriately in certain contexts. In hip-hop lyrics, however, the phrase means “be ready to spring into action during a confrontation or violent situation.” Adventurers should come correct in both senses. CONSTITUTION

One’s constitution – the term derives from the Latin constituere (set up, establish) – is a measure of one’s physical or mental healthiness, stamina, vitality. In Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s constitution modifier affects her ability to survive injury, resist poison … and concentrate on spell casting in the midst of battle. In D&D as in real life, getting plenty of rest is crucial.

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COOL

In the context of adventure, the multivalent slang term cool, which dates back to the seventeenth century, doesn’t mean “hip” or “unenthusiastic” – it means “imperturbable.” To play it cool or keep one’s cool is to remain composed in a crisis. A cool hand – the nineteenth-century slang term was repopularized in 1967 by the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke – is a shrewd character who, like Mr Spock, can analyze a situation calmly no matter the circumstances. See: sang-froid COPE

The figurative meaning of cope, which derives from the French couper (strike), is “deal effectively with something difficult.” Literally, the term originally meant “to meet in the shock of battle or tournament, to prove oneself a match for.” Couper also means “cut,” though, which suggests that coping can sometimes be a question of finding an incisive approach that renders a problem’s perceived constraints moot – as in the legend in which Alexander the Great proved his right to rule the

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known world by slashing (instead of untangling) the Gordian Knot. CORKER

In seventeenth-century British boxing argot, boozy metaphors abound. Claret (wine of a deep purplish-red) became a code word for “blood”; the nose, from which blood flowed, was called a claret jug. To bung an opponent – a bung is a wine barrel’s cork or stopper – was to close his eye, i.e., with one’s fist. And a corker is a knockout blow, one which puts a decisive stop to the match; in Australian slang, by extension, a corker is something so stunning it stops you dead. COURAGE

Although both courage and bravery are qualities which show themselves when one faces extreme danger and difficulty without retreating, the courageous person is not fearless. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear,” we read in Mark Twain’s 1894 novel Pudd’nhead Wilson, “not absence of fear.” The term, which derives from the Vulgar Latin coraticum (heart), describes a dauntlessness of spirit in times of adversity, a stubborn refusal to quit that is more

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admirable, ultimately, than mere physical fearlessness. See: bravery, fortitude, heart COUP

The French term couper – strike, cut – is itself derived from the Vulgar Latin colapus (a cuff, box on the ear) and ultimately from the Greek κόλαφος (a punch, slap). Among North America’s Plains Indians, coup came to mean “a successful stroke, especially one that captures the weapon or horse of an enemy,” and counting coup was the winning of prestige by acts of bravery in combat. A coup de grâce, meanwhile, is a merciful deathblow. COWBOY

In America’s mythology of the Old West, the frontier is where what social scientists call habitus (the objectification of social structure at the level of individual subjectivity) breaks down, and people are liberated to behave however they wish. A cowboy was literally someone who herded cattle; the term is a translation of the Spanish vaquero. In the 1920s, the word became a slangy way of describing a person who follows his own moral code and engages in reckless behaviour. ps: Cowboy up is rodeo argot

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meaning “get tougher in the face of difficult circumstances.” CRACKERJACK

When a caramel-coated popcorn-and-peanuts confection was introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the then-popular US slang term cracker-jack, which means “of marked excellence, first-rate” and which was primarily used in reference to race horses and jockeys, was appropriated and popularized. In the world of adventure, a crackerjack team or squad is one composed of exceptionally skilful persons. Each member of the outfit is invited to join up because of their own unique expertise; together, they can overcome any obstacles. See: ace CRAFT Y

Much like canny, the term crafty can be an admiring descriptor meaning “skilful, dexterous” – but it can also be a pejorative, meaning “sly, tricky.” (The tenth-century term derives from the Norse kröptugr, which first meant “strong” and later “ingenious.”) Ingenuity – a capacity for inventiveness – is to be admired, though underhanded behaviour often is not admirable. See: canny, cunning, shrewd

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CREW

The word crew derives from the Latin crescere (arise, grow, swell); in the mid-fifteenth century, it came to mean “group of soldiers sent as reinforcements” – that is, to swell the ranks. Crew later came to mean any body of soldiers or sailors organized for a particular purpose. In 1940s slang, though, a crew was a gang of criminals, a disreputable group; this sense of the term was revived in the 1980s by drug dealers, and it passed from that subculture into hip-hop vernacular. CROM (BY)

Conan the Cimmerian, a barbarian hero create in the 1930s, by Robert E. Howard in the pages of Weird Tales magazine, often uttered this colourful oath. It invokes the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, who endows his followers with courage, free will, and the strength to kill their enemies. ps: Howard borrowed Conan’s god’s name from the Irish deity Cromm Crúaich. CROSS (ON THE)

Crossing one’s forefingers, among underworld types since time immemorial, has been a wordless way of expressing one’s illicit proclivities to

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one’s fellow reprobates. To do something on the cross, then, is to do it illegally or dishonestly – as opposed to doing it on the square. ps: Although the Freemasons’ catchphrase “We meet upon the level and we part upon the square” might seem related to this underworld business, it is not. CRY HAVOC

The Old French expression crier havot means “give the signal to pillage”; havot is related to haver (seize, grasp), which ultimately derives from the Latin habere (have). By the late fourteenth century, the expression had morphed into crier havok, and it entered English as cry havoc. Antony uses the phrase figuratively, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and ever since it has been taken to mean “cause disorder and confusion.” CUNNING

The thirteenth-century noun cunning, meaning “knowledge, understanding,” is derived from the Old English cunnan (know how to do something); as an adjective in the fourteenth century, however, the term came to mean “skilfully deceitful, crafty.” Like a number of other terms in this glossary, including canny and

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crafty, the history of this word’s usage suggests that evidence of shrewd intelligence on a person’s part will always make less intelligent people uneasy. See: canny, crafty, shrewd CUT AND RUN

To cut and run is eighteenth-century naval jargon. The phrase likely comes from the action of quickly cutting free an anchor or ropeyarns (i.e., to unfurl sails from the yards) in an emergency; in the nineteenth century, the phrase came to mean “clear out precipitously.” In Old West slang, we find running-away phrases such as cut dirt and cut one’s lucky, but these may derive from the agricultural labourer’s slang phrase cut one’s sticks – i.e., literally cut notches in a stick to tally sheaves of corn harvested, before getting paid for one’s toil and quickly moving along again. CW TCH

The term cwtch (pronounced cutsch) was borrowed by the Welsh from the Middle English couche (a wild beast’s den) and used to describe a cupboard under the stairs or somewhere else hidden – i.e., a snug hiding place that someone on the lam might squeeze themselves into.

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Welsh folks eventually began using the term to mean “a cuddle or hug [that makes someone feel safe]”; as such, cwtch has in recent years been reappropriated back into the English language. DAB HAND

Long before dabbing, a gesture in which a person drops their head into the crook of an upwardly angled arm, while raising the opposite arm out straight, was appropriated from Japanese pop culture by American teens, the terms dab, dabster, and dab hand described someone adept at a specific pursuit. In fact, it is possibly a British schoolboy corruption of the word adept. ps: The seventeenth-century phrase “Ye Dabsters at Rhime” really ought to be revived, today. See: virtuoso DANGER

Once upon a time, danger described the power of a nobleman to dispose of or inflict physical injury on those at his mercy or in his debt; the term derives – by way of Old French – from the

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Vulgar Latin dominarium (power of a lord). In the late fourteenth century, the term took on its current, more general senses of “risk, peril, exposure to harm” – as in the Robot’s immortal catchphrase “Danger, Will Robinson!” from the 1965–68 tv show Lost in Space. Fun fact: The term dungeon also derives from dominarium. See: peril DANGER MAN

In British sports argot, a danger man is a player regarded as capable of winning or turning a game, or likely to inflict damage on opponents. The thrilling phrase was also used as the title of a 1960–62 UK spy show starring Patrick McGoohan, which was broadcast in the US with the catchy theme song “Secret Agent Man.” ps: McGoohan’s amazing 1967–68 UK sci-fi show The Prisoner is a sequel, of sorts, to Danger Man. DANMAKU

Bullet Hell shooters – called danmaku, meaning “barrage,” or literally “bullet curtain,” in Japanese – are shoot-’em-up videogames in which players must dodge elaborate, sometimes beautiful patterns of projectile flows. The appeal of this sort of challenge is rapidly figuring

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out the weak spots in patterns and how to exploit them; counterintuitively, the best strategy usually involves moving forward into the bullets. There’s a life lesson in there, somewhere. DARE- ALL

Dare-all is an antiquated slang term meaning “one who will do anything.” It was originally a pejorative, describing a person who was too scornful of social rules and cultural conventions. One wonders whether it was adapted from Macbeth, the protagonist of which insists – when mocked by his wife, after he hesitates to kill Duncan – that “I dare do all that may become a man / Who dares do more is none.” ps: In England, dare-all is slang for one’s mackintosh (raincoat). DAREDEVIL

The comic book superhero Daredevil, created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in 1964, was modelled after a circus stunt performer. In the now bygone world of circuses and sideshows, a daredevil is an escape artist, sword swallower, glass walker, fire eater, or trapeze artist. The term suggests one so bold that they’ll dare the devil. ps: The 1960s–70s-era stunt performer whose first troupe was called Bobby Knievel and His

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Motorcycle Daredevils knew what he was doing when he adopted the moniker “Evel.” See: devil-may-care, hell of it (for the) DARING

Dare is a modal verb supporting a main verb; to dare to do something, whatever that something might be, is to be bold (and, often, stupid) enough to do it. An ancient piece of Scottish dialect, the term derives from a protoGermanic term meaning “bold.” The use of dare to mean “challenge or defy, provoke to action,” especially by asserting or implying that someone lacks the stomach to accept the challenge, dates to the late sixteenth century, while the verbal noun daring, meaning “adventurous courage,” dates to the early seventeenth. Fun fact: Historically, when used in reference to the past, the modal form of dare was not dared but durst. See: bold DASH

One’s capacity for prompt, vigorous action was – in the late eighteenth century – referred to as dash. The earlier verb dash, meaning “move quickly, rush violently,” derives from a Norse

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onomatopoeic word expressing the sound of a violent striking together of two bodies. (Phrases like dash to pieces or dash one’s hopes still express this sense of the term.) In the early eighteenth century, dash also became a slang term for “showy appearance,” which is why we associate dashing actions not only with rapidity and spirit but with flair or stylishness too. See: élan, gallant DASTARD

A dastard is a contemptuous, skulking person – one who avoids personal risk while performing malicious acts behind the scenes. The fifteenth-century imitationFrench term likely derives from an Old Norse word meaning “dazed”; originally, that is to say, it described a dull, lazy milksop. DAUNTLESS

To daunt is to discourage, dispirit. The term is a French one; ultimately, it derives from the Latin domare (to subdue). The dauntless person’s spirit is not to be subdued, no matter how dismal the circumstances. In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, pt. 3, King Louis offers this excellent advice

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to Queen Margaret: “Let thy dauntlesse minde still ride in triumph, / Ouer all mischance.” DAVY JONES’S LOCKER

Davy Jones – whose name may or may not be a mashup of duffy, a West Indian ghost, and Jonah, the Old Testament prophet and unlucky sailor – is the sailor’s devil, a fiend presiding over the spirits of the deep. The eighteenthcentury nautical slang term Davy Jones’s locker, then, means “bottom of the sea” – i.e., where drowned sailors end up. DAWN PATROL

The seventeenth-century term patrol is soldier’s slang, likely derived from the Old French patouiller (paddle in water) and originally meaning something like “slog through mud while on guard duty.” A flight undertaken first thing in the morning, to reconnoiter enemy positions, has since wwi – i.e., the early days of military aviation – been known as a dawn patrol. In the 1960s, surfers ironically adopted dawn patrol to describe their own first-light missions. DEFIANCE

Derived, by way of Old French, from the medieval Latin diffidare (to renounce faith or alle-

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giance), defiance means “open or bold resistance to or disregard for authority, opposition, or power.” It has also come to mean “a challenge or summons to a combat or contest”; it is with reference to this latter meaning that many ships of the British Navy have been named Defiance or Defiant. Similarly, in nineteenth-century boxing argot, a defi – usually issued by an underdog – was an open invitation to fight. DEKKO (HAVE A)

Dekho is a Hindi word meaning “look at.” During the British Raj, which is to say the 1858–1947 period of rule by the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, soldiers would describe scouting missions as having a dekko. They introduced this term, along with avatar, bandana, cashmere, dungarees, juggernaut, khaki, pyjamas, shampoo, and typhoon, into English. ps: The London slang term take a shufti, which also means “have a look,” is derived from Arabic. DELOPE

In the 1930s, the romance-adventure novelist Georgette Heyer rescued the archaic word delope – meaning “to fire one’s duelling pistol harmlessly into the air,” i.e., with the aim of aborting the conflict – from oblivion. Though

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often said to be French, the term is of uncertain etymology. Fun fact: Alexander Hamilton is thought to have attempted to delope during his 1804 duel with Aaron Burr; alas for Hamilton, as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fans know, Burr shot and killed him. DESPERADO

Derived from the Latin desperare (despair), a desperado is a person who has lost everything – and therefore is ready, in their state of hopelessness, to perform any deed of lawlessness or violence. In gambling argot, the term describes a loser who cannot pay his debts; in soft-rock argot, meanwhile, it describes an outlaw type “walking through this world all alone.” Although the term sounds Spanish, it is in fact a fake-Spanish term coined in the seventeenth century. DÉPAYSEMENT

The disorienting feeling that one gets when subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes is described in French as dépaysement (literally, out-of-one’s-countryness). Although having one’s mind opened in this fashion can be unsettling, and may lead to

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culture shock, gaining a fresh perspective is the true reward of travel. “I like travelling of all things,” exulted the intrepid explorer and archaeologist Lady Hester Stanhope. “It is a constant change of ideas.” DERRING-DO

A misprint of the Middle English phrase dorryng do – that is, “daring to do” – led the poet Edmund Spenser to mistakenly use the verb phrase as a noun, one which we might define as “daring action, desperate courage,” in his sixteenth-century epic poem The Faerie Queene. Walter Scott then popularized the expression in Ivanhoe (1819), and ever since then it’s been employed as a pseudoarchaism used by contemporary writers to evoke an earlier time. DETERMINED

The quality of being resolute, unwavering, single-minded can be a crucial one for adventurers. The term determined, in the sense of “resolved, having come to a decision,” is a sixteenth-century one derived from the Latin determinare (set bounds to); the determined person, that is to say, is one who has ruled out all other possible courses of action. Which

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helps us understand that compartmentalization, despite its bad rap, has its uses – at least in an adventure context. DEVIL-MAY-CARE

Since the 1667 publication of Milton’s Paradise Lost, among so-called literary or romantic Satanists the Devil has often served a symbol of rebellion against oppressive authority. The anarchist Bakunin, for example, memorably described the figure of Satan as “the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds.” The slangy adjective devil-may-care, meaning “cheerfully reckless, carefree,” was popularized by Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (1837), in which a free and easy character is described in this slightly risqué way. See: daredevil, hell of it (for the) DEXTERIT Y

Dexterity, which is to say deftness, skilfulness in the use of one’s hands and body, comes from the Latin dexter – which means both “skilful” and “right (hand).” (One’s right hand, traditionally, was thought to be more trained and

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nimble than one’s left.) In Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s dexterity modifier is applied to her ability to react to attacks, move silently, splice a rope … and dodge the occasional fireball. Fun fact: Sinister, which originally meant “harmful, unfavourable” and later came to mean “prompted by malice, evil,” comes directly from the Latin word meaning “left (hand).” See: adroit DICEY

The throw of a die, i.e., in order to determine the outcome of a game, has long served as a potent metaphor within the world of adventure. The wwii-era Air Force slang term dicey, which means “fraught with danger, of uncertain outcome,” echoes Caesar’s famous Rubicon-crossing line “Alea iacta est” – which means “the die is cast,” and figuratively urges, “Let’s risk it all, come what may.” Fun fact: The art-world term aleatory, popularized by the composer Boulez and meaning “incorporating chance and randomness,” comes from the Latin aleator (dice player). See: game, go for broke, hazard

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DILEMMA

Attributed to the rhetorician Lorenzo Valla, the fifteenth-century coinage dilemma is Greek for “two premises”; in the world of logic and philosophy, a dilemma isn’t merely a position of perplexity, that is to say, but a false choice between bad options. Also known as a cornute, from the Latin for “forked, having two horns,” a dilemma is a logic-trap into which an unscrupulous debater seeking to win an argument will attempt to lure their interlocutor. See: quandary DIRE STRAITS

A strait is a narrow, therefore difficult-to-maneuver channel of water connecting two seas. The term derives, via Old French, from the Latin strictus (drawn tightly closed), and gives us the fourteenth-century expression strait and narrow, i.e., a judiciously constrained way of life. The sense of “difficulty, plight” evolved later; to be in dire straits is to be in a real “pinch.” DIRTBAG

Although originally a pejorative describing someone who was literally filthy, or else a sleazy character, in the late 1950s Yvon Chouinard,

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one of the leading figures of the Golden Age of Yosemite Climbing, described himself and his fellows as dirtbags – because in order to focus on climbing, they lived like tramps. The moniker, and the dirtbag subculture, survived and thrived. DITCH

Among wwii-era navy pilots, the nineteenthcentury slang term ditch, meaning “throw into (or as into) a ditch,” evolved to mean “bring an aircraft down into the sea in an emergency, make a forced landing over water.” This sense was likely reinforced by the 1920s-era use of the ditch in naval slang to refer to the sea. The airline captain Chesley Sullenberger’s 2009 landing of a crowded Airbus A320 jetliner into the Hudson River has become an iconic example of ditching. DO THE TON

To do the ton is to go at least one hundred miles per hour on a motorcycle – specifically, on a “café racer,” which is to say a bike modified with the intent of increasing performance. Fun fact: The term café racer comes from the “rocker” subculture in 1950s–60s England, members of which – as depicted in the 1979

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movie Quadrophenia – would attempt to complete a particular route before a three-minutelong café jukebox song finished playing. It was a recipe for disaster. See: wfo DO-OR-DIE

Popularized by the Scottish poet Robert Burns’s “Scots, wha Hae,” a 1793 patriotic song written in the form of a speech (“Lay the proud usurpers low, / Tyrants fall in every foe, / Liberty’s in every blow! – / Let us do or dee”) given by the Scottish warrior Robert the Bruce, the adjectival phrase do-or-die means “give one’s all, take a huge risk, even if it means utter failure and ruin.” DO-RIGHT

In 1930s criminal argot, a do-right is an honest, law-abiding citizen – that is, a sucker and potential victim. In the 1960s, Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, a segment on the cartoon The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, mercilessly poked fun at an upright, too-conscientious Mountie. DODGE

The etymology is obscure, but dodge – meaning “start suddenly aside,” i.e., as to evade a blow –

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may derive from a Scottish dialect term meaning something like “make the best of a bad situation.” As a noun, dodge can also mean “a cunning trick,” which gives us such phrases as dodgy and on the dodge, meaning “engaged in crooked, illicit proceedings.” See: artful dodger, jink DOGGED

The colloquialism dogged is a left-handed compliment, one which means literally, “having the tenacity characteristic of some breeds of dog.” Obstinacy can of course be admirable, in certain situations … but sticking to one’s guns out of sheer instinct rather than reasoned decisionmaking can prove problematic. A related colloquialism is Yellow Dog Democrat, meaning a voter in the Jim Crow–era Southern United States who would vote for a yellow dog before any Republican. See: tenacious DOGGO (LIE)

One who lies quietly and/or prone, as in concealment, is said to lie doggo – which puts one in mind of the Biblical story in which the Hebrew military leader Gideon triumphed

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over a large Midianite army while leading a troop of 300 picked men, who were selected because they lapped water from their hands warily, crouching like feral dogs, rather than lying down and sticking their heads in the stream. DONKEY KONG (ON LIKE)

“When I say to you it’s on,” Candyman raps, in the 1990 song “Nightgown,” “I mean like Donkey Kong / ’til the break of dawn.” The hip-hop expression on like Donkey Kong, which references Nintendo’s arcade game, intensifies it’s on – i.e., an expression of eagerness for a competition or confrontation. The phrase went mainstream when it was adopted by Guy Fieri. DOUGHT Y

Derived from the Germanic duchtich (valourous), the archaic Scottish term doughty means “possessing courage and determination; brave, bold, resolute.” The adjective is perhaps most aptly used in reference to an explorer like Harriet Chalmers Adams, who couldn’t understand why – in the early twentieth century – her field was monopolized by men. “I’ve never found my sex a hinderment; never faced a difficulty, which a

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woman, as well as a man, could not surmount; never felt a fear of danger; never lacked courage to protect myself,” she insisted. DRAGOON

Dragoons originally were a class of mounted infantry who fought on foot; they were established in most European armies during the late seventeenth century. Their name was derived from dragon, not the mythical serpent but the blunderbuss pistol they carried. After 1689, when the French Catholic monarchy forced Protestant families to lodge dragoons in their homes, the noun evolved into the verb dragoon, which today still means “compel by violent measures or threats.” DRIFTER

Idleness and adventure meet, for better and worse, in the concept of the drift – which can evoke a passive, listless voyage across space and time or else an engaged, meaningful determination to allow chance to play a disruptive role in one’s work and everyday practices. (The term is derived from a proto-Germanic word meaning “driven, pushed.”) In adventure stories, a drifter – one thinks of Clint Eastwood’s 1973 Western High Plains Drifter, say, or Lee

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Child’s Jack Reacher novels – is a loner who rolls into a troubled town, sparking a series of violent events that will lead to the downfall of villainous authorities. As la derive, drifting at random across the urban terrain was a key component of the Lettrists’ and Situatonists’ “revolution of everyday life” during the 1950s– 60s. ps: In Old West slang, the directive drift means “beat it, skedaddle.” See: knight errant, picaresque, ronin DROOG

Anthony Burgess’s 1962 sci-fi novel A Clockwork Orange introduced the invented Anglo-Russian slang droog, meaning “gang member, young ruffian,” into English. Burgess also gave us: gulliver (head), malchick (boy), horrorshow (good), malenky (little), rooker (hand), and other coinages which have been less widely adopted. A transliteration of the Russian word for “friend,” the word is derived ultimately from the Old Church Slavonic drugu (companion). See: ruffian DROP THE HAMMER

The expression drop the hammer, which today is used to mean “take decisive action,” appears to derive originally from the action of a

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firearm’s hammer striking the firing pin. It has been reported that, during the Civil War, instead of counting “one-two-three,” an officer giving an order to fire would deliberately enunciate the three words “drop-the-hammer” to the same end. See: lock and load DUENDE

The Spanish term duende, a contraction of the phrase dueño de casa (possessor of a house), was originally conceptualized as a mischievous spirit inhabiting a house. It has since evolved to mean “a climactic show of passion or inspiration in a performance,” i.e., suggesting that only spiritual possession could explain such prowess. Drawing on popular usage, in 1933 the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca proposed that duende is an aesthetic mode in which a performing artist channels an irrational, perhaps even diabolical force. DYNAMIC

The “principle of action,” which is to say the primitive force which is our very essence, according to the seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, expresses itself in part via a constant striving

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towards new perceptions; borrowing the Greek word δυναμικός (powerful), he named this tendency dynamism. This literal notion of a force producing forward motion evolved, in the nineteenth century, into the figurative, Emersonian adjective dynamic, which we use today to mean “active, potent, energetic.” See: élan vital, impetuous DYNO

In climbing argot, a dyno is a risky, athletic move – useful for skipping blank sections of rock, which are taxing to negotiate – in which you push off, spring through the air for a distant hold, and catch your body with a desperate “latch.” Kevin Jorgeson’s dyno, in his 2015 free climb (with Tommy Caldwell) of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan, is a particularly famous example. See: send EAGER

The fourteenth-century word eager, meaning “full of keen desire, impatiently longing to pursue or become involved in something,” derives by way of French from the postclassical Latin acrus (sharp). Metaphorically speaking, the eager person cuts through impediments, in-

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cluding their own inertia, like a hot knife through butter. ps: Riffing on the notion that beavers are tireless labourers, an eager beaver is someone – especially a child – who is superexcited to begin a task. See: keen EAGLE-EYED

Members of some eagle species can spy a rabbit from up to two miles away. So it’s apt that since the sixteenth century, the colloquialism eagle-eyed has been used to describe persons whose eyesight is particularly sharp. More commonly, the expression is used figuratively to describe an acute observer – who, even though they may not enjoy perfect eyesight, notices key details. Fun fact: In 1976, Hasbro added moveable “Eagle Eyes” to their iconic G.I. Joe action figure. EAT IT

To eat it, among surfers, skaters, snowboarders, and other extreme sports aficionados, is to be thrown, to fall on one’s face, to experience traumatic physical contact with a stationary object. Much like bite

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the dust, this expression vividly conjures up an image of a person prone on the ground spitting out a mouthful of dirt or sand. Also: wipe out, take gas, bellyflop, nose-dive. See: bite the dust, grass EBENEZER UP (GET ONE’S)

After the Israelites defeated the Philistines at Mizpeh, we read in 1 Samuel, the prophet Samuel raised a memorial named Eben-Ezer, or “stone of help.” Due to what appears to be a nineteenth-century misunderstanding of this Biblical passage, the expression get one’s Ebenezer up or raise one’s Ebenezer came to mean “get worked up, get angry.” ECONO

“We strip out tunes / We jam econo,” boasts Mike Watt’s song “The Politics of Time,” from the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime (1984). Econo, a slang term popular among San Pedro, California punks at the time, meant “low-cost, no-frills, independent.” The term – which pays tribute to the Ford Econoline van, a workhorse of the touring musician’s lifestyle – described not only a diy mode of making music but Watt’s adventurous philosophy of life.

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EDGE

In the adventure context, the Saxon edge, which has come to mean everything from “sharpness” to “border” to “advantage,” is a multipurpose Swiss Army knife of a word. Whether we’re cultivating the acuity of our senses, voyaging to the border of the known, or seeking to get the jump on our rivals, adventurers are forever seeking some sort of edge. ps: A razor’s edge is a critical position or moment, an edge-of-yourseat movie is full of suspense, and a truly edgy (i.e., not merely shocking or provocative) cultural production is one that challenges received ideas. See: acumen, eager ÉL AN

The French word élan, which means “ardour or zeal inspired by passion,” as well as “style, flair,” is derived, via Old French, from the Latin ex + lanceare (throw a lance). The term, that is to say, refers to dashing or hurling oneself forward – i.e., literally, as into combat, or figuratively, as into one’s work or passion projects. To hurl yourself whole-heartedly into whatever you’re doing is, of course, inherently stylish. See: dash, gallant

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ÉL AN VITAL

In his 1907 treatise Creative Evolution, the influential French philosopher Henri Bergson hypothesized that a creative, driving principle – the élan vital or vital impetus – immanent in all organisms is responsible for evolution. He was mistaken about this, but during the lead-up to wwi, France’s military leadership, influenced by Bergson’s doctrine of élan vital, promulgated the notion that the ardour of individual soldiers was more important for victory than weapons. See: dynamic EMPRISE

Derived from the Anglo-Norman word emprendre (undertake), the thirteenth-century term emprise refers to an adventurous, daring, or chivalric undertaking. In The Canterbury Tales (1387–1400), for example, Chaucer describes a gallant knight who “loved and dide his payne / To serve a lady in his beste wise; / And many labour, many a greet emprise, / He for his lady wroghte er she were wonne.” Meanwhile, a high emprise is an extra-momentous undertaking.

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ENDEAVOUR

As a verb, endeavour, which is derived from the French se mettre en devoir (place oneself under an obligation), means “make it one’s duty to do something.” As a noun, it means “a difficult but worthwhile undertaking.” Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic, expressed the spirit of endeavour when she said, “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” Fun fact: The vessel that Captain Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery was the Endeavour. See: enterprise, undertaking ENDO

In 1970s motor-racing argot, an endo is a crash in which one’s vehicle is thrown end over end. Cyclists today use the term to describe flipping over the handlebars, while motorcycle stunt riders use it to describe a wheelie in which the back wheel is raised. ENDURANCE

Endurance – which is derived from an Old French term meaning, literally, “make hard” – describes the ability to withstand suffering without giving way. Famously, Endurance was

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the name given to the ship in which Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic in 1914; although she was crushed by pack ice, her captain swore that she was “the finest little wooden vessel ever built.” See: fortitude, grit ENTERPRISE

Borrowed from the French entreprendre (undertake, embark upon, attack), enterprise describes a willingness to tackle a difficult assignment – often military in nature – with bold determination. Since the eighteenth century, many British and US warships have been named Enterprise. The fictional uss Enterprise, meanwhile, is a starship – the crew of which explores strange new worlds, seeks out new life and new civilizations, and boldly goes where no man has gone before. See: endeavour, undertaking EPIC

The genre of ancient Greek poetry that celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of heroic characters from history and myth is de-

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scribed as epic, from ἔπος (story, poem). The adjective has come to mean “momentously heroic, grand in scale or ambition”; an epic person or action is amazingly impressive, while an epic fail is a complete misadventure. ESCAPADE

The borrowed French word escapade – literally, the act of escaping, from confinement or restriction – has taken on the figurative meaning of “exploit or stunt that runs counter to conventional conduct.” It’s a breaking-loose, that is to say, from rules and restraints. Adventure fiction about prison breaks, crackerjack teams, etc., can best be described as escapades. See: escape ESCAPE

The term escape derives, via Old French, from the Vulgar Latin ex + cappa (cloak, headgear), which conjures up the visceral image of a person wriggling out of cumbersome outerwear as she evades pursuers. Whether or not it involves an actual getaway, or the shedding of clothing, every true adventure requires us to cast aside those assumptions and habits which inhibit us. See: cloak and dagger, getaway

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ESCAPE ARTIST

An escape artist, or escapologist, is a performer skilled in extricating herself from restraints and traps such as handcuffs, straitjackets, cages, coffins, and steel boxes. For centuries the art of escape was employed, typically by spiritualists, only as part of an illusion; it was Harry Houdini, the scourge of fake spiritualists, who in the early twentieth century transformed apparently life-threatening escape-or-die performances into a broadly popular form of entertainment. EXCELSIOR

The Latin comparative excelsior, often translated as “ever upwards” or “even higher,” was popularized by Longfellow’s 1841 poem of that title concerning a romantic drifter “who bore, ’mid snow and ice, / A banner with the strange device, / Excelsior!” Walt Whitman also wrote a poem titled “Excelsior,” collected in Leaves of Grass (1881–82), in which he demands “Who has gone farthest? For I would go farther.” Although this sort of thing inspired many parodies, Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee helped redeem the expression when he adopted it as his own mantra.

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EXCURSION

An excursion is a pleasure trip, usually lasting no more than a day in length and always returning one to one’s starting point. Derived from the Latin excurrere (run out), the term is not a synonym for voyage or journey; it’s just a jaunt. Although a Gilligan-esque three-hour tour can go awry. See: jaunt EXPEDITION

A journey undertaken by an organized group or company for a specific purpose, particularly for discovery and research, is the only sort of travel that can be properly called an expedition. The term derives from the Latin expedire (to dispatch, send off); in the fifteenth century it was primarily employed to describe warlike enterprises, but today it’s used in scientific contexts. EXPLOIT

As a noun, exploit means “heroic or extraordinary feat, deed, act, or stunt.” Derived from the Latin explicitum (a thing unfolded, ended) by way of the Old French esploit (a carrying out, achievement), the medieval

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term originally described a particularly impressive feat in battle. Later, the meaning of exploit was expanded to include other actions regarded as worth celebrating. The sense of exploit to mean “use selfishly” did not develop until the 1830s. EXPLORATION

To search an area, for the purpose of discovery of information or resources, is what it means to explore. The term derives from the Latin explorare, which means “crying out”; this etymology conjures up a vision of hunters or other travellers entering unfamiliar territory, shouting loudly as they advance. As we know, from studying the so-called Age of Discovery, exploration has historically brought distant civilizations into contact – which has led directly and indirectly to the propagation of diseases and the enslavement and exploitation of native populations. FACE

In wrestling argot, a face is a good guy, booked by the bout’s promoter with the aim of being cheered on by fans. His role involves a conspicuous refusal to

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cheat and an exaggerated display of treating fans and the referee respectfully. Dusty Rhodes and Hulk Hogan are famous examples. ps: In underworld slang, a face is a charming con man; hence Dirk Benedict’s moniker, “Faceman,” on the 1980s tv show The A-Team. See: heel, kayfabe FACER

In early twentieth-century underworld argot, a facer is a sturdy accomplice who isn’t directly involved in the commission of a crime but who will purposely – though apparently without intent – place himself in the way of persons in hot pursuit of his associates. In British slang, accordingly, a facer is a sudden, often stunning check or obstacle. FAUGH A BALL AGH

The war cry Faugh a Ballagh, meaning “clear the way,” is an eighteenth-century anglicization of the Irish phrase Fág an Bealach. First used at the battle of Barrosa in 1811 – during which a single British division defeated two French divisions, and Sergeant Patrick Masterson captured a French Imperial Eagle – the phrase was popularized during the American Civil War by the Army of the Potomac’s Irish Brigade.

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It is the motto of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, aka the Faughs. FEAT

Derived, by way of Old French, from the Latin factum (an action accomplished, something that really did happen – i.e., as opposed to a mere statement of belief), a feat is a deed of valour or dexterity so extraordinary that it seems fictional. The sixteenth-century expression a man of feat described a mighty doer of great deeds. ps: The phrase fait accompli – that is, a scheme already carried out – also means “accomplished fact.” FEED THE RAT

The British mountaineer Mo Anthoine, a familiar figure in the Himalayas in the 1970s and ’80s, characterized his need for adventure as a rat forever gnawing away at his vitals. After he saved the writer Al Alvarez’s life in the Dolomites, Alvarez wrote a fictionalized account of the incident for the New Yorker in 1971, which introduced nonclimbers to Anthoine’s expression feed the rat, meaning “embark on an adventure.”

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FEEL ONE’S OATS

To feel one’s oats, in nineteenth-century American sporting slang, is to be high-spirited, aware of one’s power or strength. The term was originally applied to horses, but it was soon also applied to boisterous, obstreperous, highstepping humans. The horseman’s idiom full of beans, meanwhile, also means “high-spirited” – and has also come to be used to describe humans. FERNWEH

The German pseudo-medical term fernweh (literally, “farsickness”) was recently coined as an antonym to Heimweh, which is to say homesickness. A more dire condition than mere wanderlust, a person suffering from fernweh becomes lethargic and sad when unable to travel far and wide. During the era of covid-19 lockdowns, we can all surely relate. See: wander FINE FETTLE (IN)

The eighteenth-century colloquialism in fine fettle, meaning “in good condition, robust,” is a jocular archaism making reference to the ancient term fettle, a verb – meaning “make ready, prepare, as though for battle” – which itself

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derives from the Norse-Germanic word for “belt.” To get oneself into fine fettle, then, is to gird one’s loins or strap in. See: buckle down, gird one’s loins FIRE AWAY, FL ANAGAN

During the Revolutionary War, sailors wanting to encourage one another during the heat of battle would use the expression “Fire away, Flanagan!” The colloquial expression was first recorded by Philip Freneau in a 1783 poem: “Scarce a broadside was ended ’till another began again / – By Jove! It was nothing but Fire away Flanagan!” One suspects that “Flanagan” was not a real person but instead a personification of the use of the term Irish to mean “fighting spirit.” See: irish FL ASH

The seventeenth-century British slang term flash means “connected with or pertaining to the criminal underworld.” A flash-ken was a thieves’ den, a flash drum was a tavern frequented by crooks, and a straight citizen who couldn’t be conned was said to be flash to the rig. ps: The 1857 novel Tom Brown’s School Days featured a bully, Harry Flashman, whose name

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readers would have recognized as archaic slang for “swindler, cheat.” George MacDonald Fraser’s series of Flashman adventures (1969– 2005) transform this schoolboy into an accidentally heroic figure. FLEET-FOOTED

The term fleet, meaning “characterized by power of rapid onward movement,” is cognate with an older German term meaning “flow, travel by water.” To be fleet-footed, then, is to dash through the world unimpeded, like a fish darting effortlessly through water. FLOW

Inspired by Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist concepts like wu wei and “action in inaction,” in 1975 the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi described that mental state in which a person performing an activity is immersed in a feeling of energized focus, and enjoyment in the activity’s process, as one of flow. Also known as being in the zone or in the groove, this highly productive and enjoyable time-out-of-time is only available to those individuals – an increasingly rare breed – capable of performing acts

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because they are intrinsically rewarding. See: wu wei FLUKE

The colloquial term fluke, which means “an unexpected piece of good luck,” was originally a nineteenth-century slang term which migrated outward from the world of billiards. A fluke (originally flook) was an accidentally successful stroke. ps: A fluke of wind is a chance breeze. See: 8-ball (behind the), put english on FLY

In eighteenth-century underworld argot, fly meant “clever, artful, wide-awake, smart.” The term later evolved to mean “informed, in the know, aware of what’s really going on.” A flyboy was a shrewd, sophisticated fellow; a fly-cop was an experienced police officer. In twentiethcentury African American slang, fly evolved to mean “stylish,” “sexy,” and/or “cool.” FORAGE

To rove or hunt about, while travelling overland, in search of something to feed one’s cattle or horses, is to forage – the term comes from the French

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for “fodder.” In a more general sense, the term is used to mean “live off the land, make do with what one finds.” Llonio, the sharp-eyed homesteader in Lloyd Alexander’s children’s adventure Taran Wanderer (1967), articulates the forager’s credo: “Trust your luck, but don’t forget to put out your nets.” Words to live by. See: reconnoiter FORAY

The fifteenth-century term foray, meaning “scour or ravage in search of supplies or booty” or, as a noun, “hostile or predatory incursion,” is a back-formation from the same Middle English root as forage. The word fell out of use until it was revived by – who else? – Walter Scott. FORTITUDE

In The Republic, the Socratic dialogue authored by Plato around 375 bc, Socrates outlines four cardinal virtues – the most adventurous of which, ἀνδρεία (“manliness”), is usually translated in English as fortitude. This term, which means “moral or mental courage, particularly in the endurance of adversity,” and which is distinguished from mere physical bravery, derives from the Latin fort (strong). It implies

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doughty perseverance – stubbornly sticking to one’s principles. See: courage, strength FOXY

Although sometimes villainous, in Western folklore the fox tends most often to be used as an avatar of wit, craftiness, cunning – which almost always triumphs over avatars of brute force. During wwii, the German commander in North Africa, Rommel, was nicknamed the “Desert Fox” by his British adversaries as a tribute to his tactical genius. Roald Dahl’s 1970 book Fantastic Mr Fox, and its 2009 movie adaptation, are highly recommended to adventurers. See: crafty, getaway FREEDOM

To be unoppressed by servitude, constraint, or inhibition is to enjoy freedom. The Old English free derives from a proto-Germanic word meaning “not in bondage”; a free person is unconstrained in movement, able to speak their mind openly, and not subject to despotism. Adventure, which is always escapist, aims at the achievement or experience – if only

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imperfectly and temporarily – of precisely this utopian state of being-in-the-world. See: liberty FREEL ANCER

In the Middle Ages, according to Walter Scott’s 1819 novel Ivanhoe, a freelancer was a military adventurer, typically of knightly rank, who offered his services for payment (or with a view to plunder). That is to say, he was a lancer (cavalry soldier) free of obligation to any particular lord. In our current “cognitive-cultural economy,” a freelancer is an independent contractor who, although working in the field of writing, say, or graphic design, may yet be a soulless mercenary. See: mercenary FUBAR

In acronymic wwii-era military argot, a thoroughly botched situation was often described by the soldiers who had to cope with it as fubar – “fucked up beyond all recognition” (or repair, or reason). The term made a comeback after it was used in the movies Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Tango & Cash (1989). ps: fubb means “fucked up beyond belief.”

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FUGAZI

In 1987, when hardcore punk and diy folk hero Ian MacKaye, formerly of Minor Threat, was looking for a name for his new band, he plucked this one out of a compilation of stories from Vietnam War vets. It’s a Vietnam-era military slang term meaning “fucked up, damaged beyond repair.” Fun fact: Although fugazi may sound Italian, there is no such word in that language. GAL AHAD

Tennyson puts the following boast into the mouth of Sir Galahad, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table renowned for his gallantry and chastity: “My good blade carves the casques of men, / My tough lance thrusteth sure, / My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure.” What a guy! In our antiheroic era, however, the term Galahad is most often used in mockery – i.e., to take someone down a peg because of their annoying holier-than-thou attitude.

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GALL ANT

The adjective gallant, meaning “dashing, spirited, chivalrous,” derives from the Old French galer (make merry, make a show); as a noun, gallant refers to a gentleman who is polite and attentive to the female sex – and a bit of a dandy. ps: The verb gallivant, which means “gad about showily with persons of the other sex,” describes the behaviour of an over-sexed gallant. See: dash, élan GALVANIZE

The nineteenth-century neologism galvanize, which figuratively means “shock or excite someone into action,” literally means “stimulate a body with electricity.” It’s a reference to the pioneering eighteenth-century Italian scientist Galvani, who was the first to observe that muscles contract when stimulated by an electric current. ps: Mary Shelley’s 1831 novel Frankenstein, whose titular scientist reanimates a corpse, helped popularize the term galvanism. GAMBIT

In chess, an opening sequence of moves involving a risky sacrifice to gain advantage is known

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as a gambit. The term, which was first applied to chess openings in 1561 by a Spanish priest, who borrowed it from the Italian expression dare il gambetto (put a leg forward to trip someone), has come to mean, more generally, “a sneaky plan, stratagem, or ploy.” The 1966 Michael Caine movie Gambit, for example, is about the planning and execution of an ultracomplex heist. See: jeopardy, panenka GAME

The word game, an ancient one in English, is derived from a German word meaning “sport, fun.” Among seventeenth-century underworld types, to be on the game was to practise one’s criminal specialty. This illicit sense of the term has stuck: In midcentury American slang, game meant “skill or effectiveness, especially in criminal activity.” In the ’60s, idioms like tighten one’s game emerged in African American slang, and in hip-hop vernacular, from the ’90s to the present, the boast got game describes skilful technique in whatever one’s chosen field may be. See: gambit, make a move

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GAME OVER

Unlike today’s videogames, which rarely “end” until they are completed, early arcade games – beginning with electric pinball machines in the 1950s – would display the message game over, indicating failure in one’s objective, no more chances. When Bill Paxton’s character, Private First Class William L. Hudson, shouts “Game over, man! Game over!” in the 1986 movie Aliens, gamers in particular could understand his feeling of despair. GANGBUSTERS (LIKE)

The 1940s slang phrase like gangbusters, which now means “aggressively, forcefully, speedily; hence, excitingly, vigorously,” was a reference to the machine guns, sirens, and other loud sound effects heard at the beginning of each episode of the 1936–57 radio program Gangbusters. Originally, the expression meant “with great initial excitement.” GANGSTA LEAN

“Diggin the scene with the gangsta lean” exults N.W.A’s 1988 song “Gangsta Gangsta,” quoting William DeVaughn’s 1974 R&B hit, “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got.” To recline to the side, while driving a car, is a sedentary form of

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peacockery related to the pimp roll, gangster glide, and other swaggering, ambling gaits with a pronounced half-limp – which are intended to advertise one’s status as a much-injured tough guy, a veteran of many a fracas or brawl. GANK

In videogaming argot, ganking involves using the element of surprise to attack helpless fellow players. The term originates in 1980s African American slang, where to gank someone is to rip them off. “I gank suckers like you for thick gold chains,” boasts Low Profile’s 1989 song “Pay Ya Dues,” for example. A robbery, meanwhile, is a gank move. GEAR

The ancient English term gear, meaning “stuff,” derives from an Old Norse verb meaning “make ready.” By the thirteenth century, the term had come to mean “equipment, accoutrements for a particular endeavour” – which is how we still use it. By figurative extension, the military slang phrase to pack the gear means “have the necessary ability.” And although the military slang expression get one’s ass in gear might seem to compare a slow-moving person to a car in low gear, in fact it’s an evolution of get into

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one’s gear – meaning “get ready for action.” See: fine fettle (in) GERONIMO

In the 1939 movie Geronimo, an Apache warrior is depicted making a leap on horseback down an almost vertical cliff – thus evading his pursuers. In the midst of this jump he lets out the triumphant cry “Geronimo-o-o!” During their jump training, wwii-era US paratroopers would shout this word as a half-facetious, halfheartfelt homage to Geronimo, the Apache warrior. GETAWAY

This piece of underworld argot, which refers to “an escape, as from captivity or the scene of a crime,” seems to have been borrowed from the culture of fox-hunting – where it originally referred to the breaking of a fox from cover or a horse from restraint. In recent years, it has become a milder colloquialism meaning, less thrillingly, “a hurried departure.” See: escape, foxy GET BUSY

Although this US colloquialism has come to mean “engage in sexual activity,” it was originally

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an imperative meaning “become active.” “You fellows get busy!,” urges a character in a 1906 instalment of Winsor McCay’s comic Little Nemo in Slumberland; similarly, in Public Enemy’s song “M.P.E.” (1987), Chuck D brags, “I’m cold gettin’ busy while I’m shakin’ you down.” nb: Like idlers, adventurers reject the burden of busy work, but they tend to be active and energetic. See: dynamic GET NAKED

The midcentury slang phrase get naked means “loosen up,” i.e., in order to enjoy oneself uninhibitedly … but also to perform more effectively. These days, it’s most often used by baseball coaches urging their pitchers to stop over-thinking everything. See: flow GET THE DROP ON

In cowboy and mountain-man slang, to get the drop on one’s antagonist is to gain a tactical advantage over them … by covering them with a firearm before they have a chance to do the same. Perhaps the term literally means that one’s opponent is forced to drop their own weapon – it’s unclear. ps: Although it sounds

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violent, the more recent expression get a jump on, meaning “get ahead of,” is a figurative phrase referring to the “jump-spark” that ignites an engine. GET OUT OF DODGE

The directive Get out of Dodge alludes to Dodge City, Kansas, the locale of the 1955–75 tv series Gunsmoke – in which the fictional US Marshal Matt Dillon (played by square-jawed actor James Arness) would issue this directive to bad guys. In the 1960s, juvenile delinquents began using the phrase to mean split, take off. In recent years, the phrase has become popular among apocalypse-fearing preppers, for whom “Dodge,” in this usage, means “civilized society.” GET-UP

According to a folk poem set to music by Pete Seeger, “How do I know my youth is all spent? / My get-up-and-go has got up and went.” But not to worry, the poem’s narrator counsels: “In spite of it all, I’m able to grin / When I think of the places my get-up has been.” If Seeger is to be believed, this suggestive term doesn’t merely mean “energy” or “ambition.” Like the yetzer

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hara of Jewish tradition, one’s get-up or getup-and-go is one’s congenital inclination to do evil – without which one likely wouldn’t do anything at all. See: dynamic GILLIGAN HITCH

The mysterious origin of Bob Denver’s character’s name on the 1960s tv show Gilligan’s Island is known only to producer Sherwood Schwartz. However, one suspects that it’s a tribute to the antiquated nautical jargon gilligan hitch, meaning “unusual or hastily tied knot.” This expression, in turn, may refer to an old-time vaudeville character, Mr Gilligan, a brawler who placed opponents in clumsy but effective choke holds. GINGER

Ginger, one of the first spices exported from India, was carried by traders into the Middle East and the Mediterranean by the first century ce. The word derives, by way of Latin and Greek, from the Sanskrit srngaveram (hornbodied). In nineteenth-century North American slang, to show ginger meant to display spirit,

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pep. To get one’s ginger up, meanwhile, was to get angry. GIRD ONE’S LOINS

To gird one’s loins means, literally, to tuck one’s dress or robe into a girdle (belt), so that it will not hamper physical activity. Figuratively, the expression first found in Proverbs (“She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms”) means “prepare for action.” When the hand of the Lord comes upon Elijah, in 1 Kings, for example, we read that “he tucked his cloak into his belt and ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.” See: buckle down, fine fettle (in) GIVE’ER

The colloquialism give it all you’ve got, meaning “go as hard as possible,” is shortened in Canadian slang to give’er. Used in moments of extremity – whether work, athletic contests, or drinking sessions – the expression urges you to buckle down to your task.

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GNARLY

In the nineteenth century, a knotty problem was said to be gnarly – that is to say, gnarled like a rugged, knotty tree. In the 1960s, surfers adopted the antiquated term to describe thrillingly challenging, touch-and-go, dangerous situations; the term also means “awesome.” The expression shred the gnar describes the act of performing well in extra-treacherous conditions. GO FOR BROKE

During wwii, Go for Broke! was the slogan of the US Army’s 442d Regimental Combat Team, recruited from among the country’s Nisei – that is, second-generation Americans born of Japanese parents. The idiom, coined during a dice game among the bold soldiers of the 442d, most of whom didn’t survive the war, means “to risk everything” in a single, final attempt. See: dicey, hazard GO HARD

To make a great effort, especially with violence. In the 1958 Elvis movie King Creole, when Elvis’s character fights off three hoodlums, Vic Morrow’s gangsterish character admiringly

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says, “You go hard!” The idiom survives in hip-hop. Also: go hard or go home. GO TO FIST CIT Y

The 1930s slang phrase go to fist city, meaning “engage in a fist-fight,” was popularized in 1968 by Loretta Lynn’s hit autobiographical country song of that title, the narrator of which warns a woman pursuing her husband that “If you don’t wanna go to fist city / You better detour around my town.” Fun fact: Lynn actually did come to own her own town: Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. GO-TO-HELL

In Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, off-duty test pilots are described as wearing obnoxiously bright, garish “go-to-hell pants.” The 1910s slang expression means “cocky, disregardful of the conventional bounds of good taste of behaviour.” A go-to-hell cap, shirt, haircut, or suit sends a signal that the wearer doesn’t care what you think of them. The more recent term fuckoff, as in fuck-off shoes, means the same thing – among women sick and tired of being judged by others.

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GONNIF

When Inspector Bucket, in Dickens’s 1853 novel Bleak House says of the much-abused homeless lad Jo that he is “as obstinate a young gonoph as I know,” he’s employing a Londoner’s slang term for pickpockets – which was itself derived from the Yiddish ganef (thief, scoundrel). The most common Anglicization of the term, these days, is gonnif. GONZO

The South Boston Irish slang term gonzo – meaning “gone,” i.e., extremely drunk and therefore prone to erratic, possibly violent behaviour – was first applied to the journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s eccentric, first-person participatory writing style by Bill Cardoso of The Boston Globe. Thompson adopted the term and popularized it via his semi-autobiographical 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. GOON

Originally, the nonce term goon – coined in 1921 by a journalist for Harper’s Magazine – meant “an unimaginative person.” However, thanks to the dull-witted, muscular

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character Alice the Goon, who appeared in E.C. Segar’s comic strip Thimble Theater, beginning in 1931, the term has since evolved to mean “big, muscular fellow” and “a ruffian hired to do violence.” See: ruffian, thug GOSU

In videogaming argot, a gosu is a highly skilled player. The Korean term, which originally was used in the context of martial arts and the game Go, means “exceptional”; it is said to derive from the Mandarin gao shou (high hand, as in cards). The term was adopted by nonKorean gamers because of a large South Korean presence in online gaming. GRAFT/GRIFT

The nineteenth-century British slang term graft, meaning “one’s unpleasant occupation,” likely derives from the original meaning of the term: “digging,” as in ditchdigging. In underworld argot, the word came to mean “criminal enterprise”; these days, we use it to mean “the unscrupulous use of authority for personal gain.” ps: It has been suggested that the US slang term grifter (a swindler who travels from

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town to town) was a composite of graft plus drifter. GRASP THE NETTLE

The nettle is a weed covered with stinging hairs. If you grasp it decisively, in the direction in which the hairs are growing, you won’t be stung; if you grasp it flinchingly, you will be. The British colloquialism grasp the nettle, then, means “tackle a difficulty boldly.” ps: To have pissed on a nettle is to be peevish, and to be upon the nettle is to be fidgety. Meanwhile, to throw one’s cassock to the nettles is to renounce the clerical life once and for all. GRASS

To grass or send to grass, in nineteenth-century boxing argot, is to knock down. The slang expression go to grass – i.e., “be sent sprawling” – is even older. In Mark Twain’s 1872 travelogue Roughing It, the slang-spewing Scotty Briggs complains to a minister whose educated manner of speaking is difficult for him to comprehend, “When you get in with your left I hunt grass every time.” ps: The military slang expression your ass is grass (and I’m the lawnmower) is a vulgar evolution of these earlier expressions. See: bite the dust, eat it

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GREAT GUNS (GO)

In eighteenth-century nautical slang, gale winds were said to blow great guns because they’d strike a ship like a bombardment – i.e., an attack by artillery fire. The phrase has since evolved into a colloquialism meaning “quickly, energetically, successfully.” GREEN RIVER (UP TO THE)

In the mid-nineteenth century, mountain men admired the hunting knives manufactured in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in a factory situated on the Green River. The words “green river” were stamped on each knife’s blade, near the hilt; so the phrase up to the Green River is a slangy synonym for the figurative expression “to the hilt” – which is to say, “to the maximum extent.” To send someone up Green River, meanwhile, is to kill them. See: all ahead bendix GREMLIN

In wwii-era British slang, a gremlin was a creature humorously postulated as the cause of otherwise unaccountable problems, especially engine trouble, midflight. (The term may be a composite of goblin and Fremlin – that is to say, a goblin who has emerged from a bottle of

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Fremlin-brand beer.) Roald Dahl, an raf fighter ace, would first find success with his 1943 children’s book The Gremlins. And who can ever forget William Shatner’s encounter with a gremlin in a famous 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone? GRIT

The term grit – employed today by psychologists to describe a noncognitive trait based on an individual’s perseverance of effort – derives from the proto-Germanic word for crushed particles of rock. Since the early nineteenth century grit has meant “toughness of character” – i.e., expressions like true grit (unfaltering courage), grit out (endure no matter what), and gritty (tenacious). ps: During the 2020 US presidential campaign, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty became a symbol of tenacious resistance against despotism. See: sand, sisu GRONKED

In climbing argot, to gronk is to go off-route … and find oneself in a much more difficult area.

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The term refers to the climb of that name in Bristol, England’s Avon Gorge – where climbers often become disoriented. To be gronk’d, meanwhile, means to be humiliated by an opponent; it is a reference to the indefatigable New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. GUERRILL A

A guerrilla, in common usage, is a fighter in an irregular, independent armed force. However, originally this Spanish term, which literally means “little war,” meant “irregular warfare”; a guerrilla fighter was known as a guerrillero. The term entered English during the Peninsular War (1808–14), in the course of which bands of Spanish peasants harassed occupying French forces. See: maquis GUMPTION

In the early eighteenth century, the Scottish colloquialism gumption meant “common sense, mother wit, shrewdness.” By the nineteenth century, however, it had evolved to mean “spirit, initiative, determination, drive.” Either way, it’s a crucial quality for any adventurer.

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GUNCH

In archery argot, when your mind thinks that you’ve released an arrow but in fact your fingers didn’t actually let go – which leads you to flinch before releasing the bow string – the shot is a gunch. This is considered more humiliating than your run-of-the-mill bad shot or chunk. GUNG-HO

In 1942, the US Marine Corps’ Second Raider Battalion adopted the motto Gung Ho, a corruption of a Mandarin phrase (gōnghé) misunderstood to mean “work together.” The adjective gung-ho was originally supposed to mean “exemplifying the qualities of teamwork, courage, and wholehearted dedication,” i.e., among Marines. However, cynical types instead began using it to mean “ultrazealous, overly enthusiastic” – and that sense has stuck. See: hayako GUTS

To have guts – according to folk tradition, which locates the source of courage (for some reason) in one’s digestive system – is to possess strength of character, moral stamina, boldness and independence of spirit. On guts means “through determination alone”; to gut out is to

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endure bravely and tenaciously. To be gutless – Hemingway popularized the phrase gutless wonder, in his 1937 adventure To Have & Have Not – is to be a coward. See: bottom, pluck HACK

Before it was appropriated by programmers, in the 1970s, to mean “gain unlawful access to a computer system” and then by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students to mean “demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness via pranks,” hack was military slang meaning “accomplish successfully.” An extracompetent person, in 1950s military argot, was sometimes called a hacker. This slang sense of the term derives from its early eighteenth-century use to mean “a horse that can handle any task,” which was itself a slangy reference to Hackney – a London borough where horses for hire were stabled. HAIL MARY

The Catholic angelic salutation Ave Maria (Hail Mary, in English), used as a devotional recitation, has since the 1940s been used to describe a desperation play in US football and basketball. One of the most memorable examples is a

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game-winning pass from Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie to wide receiver Gerard Phelan in 1984. The term was adopted, during the Gulf War, by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf – whose complex plan for vanquishing the Iraqi army ultimately relied on a calculated risk. See: gambit HAIR

To have a lot of hair, in midcentury sports argot, is to play aggressively and well. In 1940s military slang, likewise, a hairy-assed person is hard-bitten, intrepid, tough. This (unfounded) equation of hirsuteness with virile qualities dates at least back to the Old West, when a belligerent, very tough and dangerous fellow was often called a curly wolf. See: baldheaded HAIRY

Students in the nineteenth century would describe a difficult situation as hairy. The term became popular among cowboys and, later, wwii-era pilots. In Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen’s character warns Robert Duvall’s character, “It’s pretty hairy in there. That’s Charlie’s

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Point” – he is referring to a surf-creating headland controlled by the Viet Cong (“Victor Charlie,” in US military slang). Duvall’s immortal, sociopathic response: “Charlie don’t surf!” See: hair HALF -STEPPER

The wwii military pejorative half-stepper meant, literally, “slow-moving person” and, figuratively, “one who does things unenthusiastically.” The expression was revived in ’90s-era hip-hop, where it came to mean “a person who makes threats without following through.” The 1991 song “Buggin’ Out,” by A Tribe Called Quest, offers a humorously tautological definition of the expression: “I never half step ’cause I’m not a half-stepper.” Also: half-assed. HAMSTRING

In ancient times, a prisoner of war was sometimes crippled by his captors – who would sever the hamstring muscles in his thigh, thus giving us the literal meaning of the verb hamstring. (Ham is an Old English word meaning “the hollow of the knee.”) Figuratively, to hamstring someone is to limit them in a way that prevents full utilization of resources.

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HANG LOOSE

In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), the sympathetic but tough Officer Fremick warns James Dean’s troubled teenager character, Jim Stark, to hang loose – shortly before tackling him to the floor. This is the first recorded use of the midcentury slang phrase, which means “chill out, don’t be uptight.” ps: Hang tough is a 1930s slang expression perhaps originally used to encourage prisoners not to give in to despair and self-pity. HANKY-PANKY

Along with terms including cosh (truncheon), cushy (easy), and nark (police informer), the term hanky-panky is reportedly of Romany origin. Now meaning “clever trickery, deception,” it originally described a specific sleight-of-hand trick played on unsuspecting dupes: that is, adroitly substituting a bundle containing coins for a bundle of worthless stones. See: skulduggery HARDBOILED

After wwi, an entire generation saw themselves, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, as one that had “grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in

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man shaken.” The hardboiled fiction produced by this generation – from The Maltese Falcon to Miss Lonelyhearts – tends to be gritty and fatalistic, characterized by a lack of sentiment. The genre label was borrowed from underworld slang, in which a hard-case or hard guy was a brutal criminal, while a hard nose or hard ticket was merely a pugnacious person. HARM’S WAY (IN)

The expression in harm’s way, meaning “in a dangerous situation because it’s one’s duty,” dates at least back to the Revolutionary War – during which the American naval commander John Paul Jones, while seeking a vessel with which to fight the British, wrote, “I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm’s way.” The tv Tropes wiki, meanwhile, uses the expression to describe the trope in which adrenaline junkies never get their happy ending … because they can only be happy in the midst of adventure. HAUL ASS

The mind boggles at how often, and with what inexhaustible creativity, the word ass (a colloquialism for “bottom, rear end” but used as a vulgar metonym for one’s entire body) is used

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in American military slang, from wwii to the present day. This particular phrase means “hurry up, get a move on.” Also: haul tail, shake one’s ass. See: badass, kick ass HAYAKO

US soldiers stationed in East Asia, during the Vietnam War, used this directive, a mispronunciation of the Japanese Hayaku! (Hurry! Faster!), to mean “Make it snappy!” See: gung-ho HAYMAKER

A haymaker is a desperation punch, thrown with the intent to knock an opponent out – or go down trying. The early twentiethcentury boxing term probably refers to the stroke of a scythe. ps: Because knock down can mean “sell at auction,” another slang term for knock-out blow is auctioneer. HAYWIRE (GO)

In turn-of-the-century loggers’ argot, hay-wire means “poorly equipped, roughly contrived” – that is to say, like a piece of equipment or machinery repaired with a length of flimsy

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hay-baling wire, i.e., in a temporary, haphazard fashion. By the 1920s, the expression go haywire had come to mean “lose control, go badly awry.” HAZARD

The Arabic gambling-dice game pronounced az-zahr was adopted in France at some point prior to the fourteenth century. The French rendition of the term, asard, entered the language as a neologism meaning “chance, accident,” hence, a risk of loss or harm, a possibility of danger. Later, the dice game and the term – now spelled hazard – were also embraced in England. To do something at all hazards means “whatever the risk.” See: adventure, chance, dicey HEADS UP

As with the expression chin up, this eighteenthcentury example of military jargon was originally a morale-boosting directive meaning “remain positive, be confident.” Later, it became a warning, akin to “keep your eyes open.” A heads-up person, in 1930s slang, is aware, alert, in the know. Today, when so many of us walk about hunched over a smartphone’s display, this figurative warning has reverted once

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more to a literal one. ps: The Scottish directive keep the heid means “remain calm, keep your temper.” See: leery HEAR THE OWL HOOT

The 1930s slang phrase hear the owl hoot describes the surreptitious movements of a fugitive from justice – i.e., one who (like an owl) doesn’t come out of hiding until night. The expression has also been used to mean “have many and varied (illicit) experiences.” The owlhoot trail is the life of an outlaw, while an owlhoot is the outlaw himself. HEART

The heart, a muscular organ pumping blood through our circulatory system, has long been identified in many cultures worldwide with the seat of moral courage (as opposed to mere bravery, the seat of which is one’s guts). To listen to one’s heart is to obey the dictates of morality and emotion, rather than base one’s decisions on logical ratiocination. ps: In 1930s underworld argot, heart meant “nerve, especially in defying the law” – which is also, in an

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antiheroic way, an example of behaviour driven by moral courage rather than deliberation. See: courage, pluck HEAVY

A hardened or professional criminal, in 1930s underworld argot, was a heavy. A heavy man was an armed robber; a heavy racket was a criminal activity involving violence. This sense of the word seems to derive from nineteenthcentury theatrical argot, in which an actor who played villains was called a heavy business man or a heavy leading man. HECTIC

In the early twentieth century, doctors borrowed a Greek word (ἑκτικός) meaning “consumptive” to describe that kind of fever which is attended with flushed cheeks. The term hectic later became a colloquialism meaning “characterized by a state of feverish excitement.” HEGHLU’MEH QAQ JAJVAM

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Klingon officer Worf often proclaims, “Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam” (Today is a good day to die). The phrase, which suggests that a warrior should

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begin each day willing to die if necessary to protect their family and territory, was appropriated from Westerns in which Native American characters utter similar maxims. These seem to have been inspired by the Sioux battlecry “Nake nula wau welo!” (I am ready for whatever comes). HEEL

In early twentieth-century underworld argot, a heel was a dishonourable, untrustworthy person – a criminal mistrusted by his fellow criminals. During the 1970s, the term gained new popularity in the world of professional wrestling – in which a wrestler (like “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, say, or the Iron Sheik or Randy Savage) cast in a villainous role was known as a heel. See: face, kayfabe HEELED

In the argot of the Old West, to be or go heeled is to wear a gun. This was perhaps originally an allusion to cockfighting, in which to heel a fighting cock, in eighteenth-century slang, is to equip it with a gaff (a sharpened metal spur) in the heel area of its leg where its natural spur has been removed. By extension, the term

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heeled also came to mean “equipped, supplied, prepared.” See: packing HELL OF IT (FOR THE)

The 1930s slang phrase for the hell of it first shows up in crime fiction by the likes of Raymond Chandler; it means “out of a spirit of sheer mischief or perversity.” As with expressions like devil-may-care, this expression of folksy satanism encourages and celebrates rebelling against internalized sociocultural constraints. To give hell, meanwhile, is nineteenthcentury slang meaning “let have it, punish severely,” while to raise hell is to create a ruckus. See: devil-may-care HELLBENT

As with the expression come hell or high water, to be hellbent means “determined to achieve one’s goal at all costs, no matter what dangers or difficulties may arise.” This eighteenth-century expression gave us the nineteenth-century colloquial phrase hellbent for leather (at full speed, all-out, recklessly). Judas Priest’s 1978 song of that title warns against trying to emulate a leather-clad motorcyclist of whom it is said, “There’s many who tried to prove that

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they’re faster / But they didn’t last and they died as they tried.” See: wfo HELMET FIRE

In military jargon, a pilot who gets so bogged down in the details of an instrument approach (e.g., making radio calls, changing the speed and configuration of the aircraft, and so forth) that her sensory channels are overloaded is said to suffer from helmet fire. This task-saturated state is characterized by a dangerous loss of situational awareness. We can all relate to this, nowadays. HELTER-SKELTER

The sixteenth-century colloquialism helterskelter, meaning “in disordered haste, tumultuously,” is what etymologists call a “jingling” (imitative) expression; it vaguely reminds us of the clatter of feet rapidly and irregularly moved. The 1968 song by the Beatles (Paul McCartney, in particular) of that title, which Charles Manson would interpret in an apocalyptic way, took the British fairground attraction with a spiralling slide known as a “helter skelter” for its inspiration.

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HERO

The term hero comes from Greek mythology, where it describes the half-human offspring of a god. Such men and women may have possessed superhuman abilities, but by today’s standards they aren’t very attractive figures. The sense in which we’ve come to use the term hero in English, in reference to a person distinguished by the performance of courageous or noble actions, applies more appropriately to King Arthur and other paragons of chivalry. See: antihero, chivalry, honour HERO (BYRONIC)

Via his 1812–18 semiautobiographical poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the English poet Lord Byron first popularized the archetype of a hero who is arrogant, depressive, and emotionally tortured … yet somehow sympathetic, even admirable. From Dantes (The Count of Monte Cristo) and Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) to Snape (the Harry Potter series) and Edward Cullen (the Twilight series), the brooding Byronic hero has fascinated readers for more than two centuries now.

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HERO (ROMANTIC)

Unlike the antihero and Byronic hero, who are dark, troubled figures, the romantic hero – examples include Robin Hood, Hawkeye (The Last of the Mohicans), the titular hero of Sabatini’s Captain Blood, and Leslie Charteris’s Simon Templar – rebels against sociocultural norms in a cheerful fashion. The literary theorist Northrop Frye suggests, intriguingly, that such a figure represents the amoral power of nature itself, which society has suppressed and excluded. HEY, RUBE

If a carnival worker, in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, got mixed up in a clem (brawl) with townspeople, he would shout, “Hey, Rube!” and his colleagues would immediately drop everything and rally to his defence. Fun fact: During wwii, “Hey Rube!” became an unauthorized but popular open-microphone radio call issued on US aircraft carriers – i.e., to alert fighter pilots to prepare to defend a task force from an attack by air. HIGH-TAIL

The Old West colloquialism high-tail, meaning “run away quickly,” refers to the erect tails of

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some animals – white-tailed deer, in particular – in flight. Biologists who study this behaviour have suggested that a deer flares and waves its tail at a predator not out of fear but in order to signal, “I’ve spotted you, game over. Don’t waste my energy and I won’t waste yours.” HIJACK

The 1920s-era underworld term hijack was first used to describe the activities of travelling stick-up men; the neologism may derive from the directive, “Hands up high, Jack!” During Prohibition, robbers who preyed upon the truckmen who carried bootleg liquor around the country were described as hijackers, and since then the expression has been used strictly in reference to the commandeering of vehicles, including aircraft, by criminals and terrorists. HIKE

In the late eighteenth century, the British Romantic poets Wordsworth, Keats, and Coleridge popularized the idea of walking vigorously, up hill and down dale, for exercise and sheer pleasure. The colloquialism hike, which appears to be derived from the dialectical term hyke (jerk one’s legs or arms

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vigorously), emerged in the nineteenth century. ps: Multiday hikes in mountainous regions are described as treks. Bushwhacking refers to off-trail hiking. See: randonée, trek HIP (ON THE)

The wrestling argot on the hip, meaning “nearly vanquished” or, more generally, “at a disadvantage,” dates back at least to the sixteenth century, if not earlier. During the trial scene in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, for example, the anti-Semitic Gratiano trolls Shylock by saying, “Now infidel, I have thee on the hip.” ps: Wrestling argot is fun, though most of it – e.g., cement mixer, merkle, Saturday night ride, swisher, whizzer – hasn’t entered mainstream usage. HIT THE APEX

In motorcycle racing, hitting the apex involves making the largest-diameter turning radius possible – i.e., transforming a curving track into as straight a line as possible – in order to minimize lateral g’s (side to side grip), thus allowing for greater speed. In roller derby, meanwhile, jumping the apex is a move where the skater jumps over the inside of the track.

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HIT THE ROAD

Itinerant labourers, who’d walk from one site of employment to the next, first popularized the expression hit the road, or hit the highway – meaning, “move on, get out, be on one’s way.” Ray Charles’s hit 1961 version of the song “Hit the Road Jack” (written by Percy Mayfield) helped immortalize the expression. ps: Hobos, who travelled by rail, used railroad-specific variations of the phrase, such as hit the ties and hit the steel. HOG-WILD

When they escape captivity, domestic pigs undergo morphological changes; they grow hair, sprout tusks, and become aggressive. Perhaps this explains the colloquialism hog-wild, which means “completely unrestrained, out of control.” ps: The expression go the whole hog, meaning “commit oneself all the way,” derives from a mean-spirited, Islamophobic eighteenth-century poem, by Cowper, in which a fictional Muslim samples each part of a roasted pig, to test which parts of it aren’t permissible to eat … until he’s consumed the whole thing.

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HOIST WITH ONE’S OWN PETARD

A petard is a sixteenth-century small bomb, used by sappers and miners to blow a hole in a fortress’s wall. To be hoist with one’s own petard is literally to be blown into the air by one’s own bomb; figuratively – as Shakespeare uses the phrase in Hamlet – it means to be destroyed by one’s own device for the ruin of others, to be foiled by one’s own plan. Fun fact: The French word pétard comes from péter (break wind, fart). HONOUR

Honour is originally an aristocratic concept. Although we tend to think of an honourable person as being virtuous, the term – which is derived, via French, from the Latin word for “esteemed” – in fact describes noble behaviour, not moral excellence of character. One thinks of honourable villains of fiction, from Long John Silver to Dr Doom, say, who perform brave, chivalrous deeds while remaining wicked. An honour culture is of crucial importance among warriors, from police to soldiers, who must be enjoined to use violence only to defend the defenceless. See: chivalry

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HOODLUM

The slang term hoodlum was coined in the 1870s in San Francisco, where it was used to describe rowdy punks who disturbed the peace and harassed Chinese immigrants. In the 1950s, during a panic in America about juvenile delinquency, the term resurfaced: “I’m not a hoodlum,” Elvis’s character insists to a high-school principal in King Creole (1958). “But I am a hustler.” ps: The 1950s surfer term hodad, used to describe car-crazy louts, most likely derives from hoodlum. See: hooligan HOOLIGAN

Although we now tend to associate the terms hooligan and hooliganism with football (soccer) fan violence in the United Kingdom, the term – meaning “member of a street gang, rowdy youth” – first appeared in London newspaper police-court reports in 1898. The slang term is a mock-Irish one, no doubt coined because of its association with rowdiness and brawling. See: hoodlum, irish HOON

A bozo who drives a boat, car, or motorcycle in a reckless manner, in order to provoke a

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reaction from onlookers, is known in Australia as a hoon. It has been suggested that the slang term is a contraction of the Swiftian coinage Houyhnhnm … but that doesn’t make sense, since the Houyhnhnms are an intelligent, calm, peaceful species. Hoon, the sound of which reminds us of a fast-moving vehicle, is instead likely onomatopoetic in origin. HORSE SENSE

Speaking of Houyhnhnms, the nineteenthcentury colloquialism horse sense means “sound practical judgment concerning everyday matters.” (One can detect an anti-intellectual edge to this expression, which implies that rural folk wisdom trumps formal education.) Adventurers, whether formally educated or not, are often required to rely on their intuitive, tacit know-how. See: nous, savvy HOTSHOT

This 1930s colloquialism – which makes reference to a bullet or piece of shot still hot from firing – means “brash, often exceptionally capable person.” Since midcentury, the term has often been used in a derisory fashion, as a way of putting an overly bold person in their place;

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cf. Roy Lichtenstein’s 1963 painting Okay HotShot, Okay! ps: A hot rod, in 1940s slang, means “aggressive driver.” HUCKING

To huck, in kayaker lingo, is to purposely hurl oneself over a waterfall and drop from a height. The term is probably borrowed from the world of frisbee, where hucking means “throwing a long distance,” i.e., more forcefully than accurately. The phrase huck it big is used by those who enjoy motorbike aerial stunting, kitesurfing, and skiing off cliffs. HUNKY DORY

When David Bowie was looking for a title for his 1971 album, the lyrical themes of which are dark and dystopian, he settled on hunky dory – antiquated British slang meaning “OK, safe and sound, doing fine.” Although it has been suggested that the term is sailors’ slang referring to Honcho Dori, a Yokohama thoroughfare leading from the city’s centre to its seedier port area, it’s likely a reduplicative children’s expression derived from hunky – meaning “safe on base.”

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HURT LOCKER (IN THE)

The US military slang phrase in the hurt locker means “seriously injured and thereby incapacitated, either temporarily or permanently”; it dates back to the Vietnam War. The suburban supermarket scene in Kathryn Bigelow’s 2008 movie The Hurt Locker, about an Iraq War Explosive Ordnance Disposal team who are targeted by insurgents, powerfully demonstrates how the stress of combat can leave soldiers in bad shape – even once they’ve returned home. HUSTLE

In the old Dutch gambling game hustle-cap, coins are shaken (hutselen) in a cap; in the seventeenth century, hustle came to mean “move quickly.” Over time, the term has also come to mean “push roughly (as when moving through a crowd),” “sell aggressively,” and “swindle.” These days, it is most frequently used to mean “work hard in a freelance manner,” and as such is used in a humblebragging way – e.g., the hustle is real – to indicate one’s capitalist bona fides. I’M YOUR HUCKLEBERRY

In early nineteenth-century southern American slang, the idiom a huckleberry over my persimmon meant “a bit beyond my abilities,” whereas

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I’m your huckleberry was a way of saying, “I’m the very person for a particular job.” The homely phrase was popularized by the 1993 western movie Tombstone, in which Doc Holliday says it, menacingly, to Johnny Ringo. IKIGAI

Western lifestyle gurus have borrowed this expression – which means “the value in everyday life” or one’s “purpose in action” – from Japan’s Okinawan culture. Okinawans have less desire to retire than the rest of us, it seems, because their ethos of ikigai allows them to find fulfillment in doing work that benefits the greater good … as opposed to only seeking advancement. See: carpe diem IMP OF THE PERVERSE

“The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action,” writes Edgar Allan Poe, in the 1845 story “The Imp of the Perverse.” “It must, it shall be undertaken today, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse.” The imp of the perverse, the narrator

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claims, is a devil who sits on your shoulder, urging you to do the opposite of what you intend. See: hell of it (for the) IMPERIUS REX

When swimming or flying into battle, the sympathetic Marvel villain Namor, king of Atlantis, shouts the cod-Latin slogan Imperius Rex. Coined by Stan Lee, the phrase is a pronunciamento meaning something like, “I grant myself the power and authority to do what I’m about to do!” See: clobberin’ time (it’s) IMPETUOUS

To do something quickly, without spending time deliberating whether or not you’re making the wisest decision, is to engage in impetuous behaviour. The term derives, via French, from the Latin impetus (driving force). According to the latest neuroscientific research, conscious intentions play a less definitive role in decisionmaking than common sense has led us to believe. We’re not in the driver’s seat, it turns out; instead, we’re driven. See: dynamic

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INDOMITABLE

When the term indomitable, taken from the Latin in (not) + domitare (tame), first entered the English language, it was a pejorative meaning “wild, unruly, animal-like.” By the early nineteenth century, however, it was being used to describe those whose grit and persistence helped them to succeed in difficult situations. Fun fact: Goscinny and Uderzo’s Astérix comics begin with these inspiring lines: “The year is 50 bc. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely … one small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders.” INTELLIGENCE

The ability to discern between what is true and false, useful and useless, and to retain this information as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviours, is what we mean when we describe someone or something as intelligent. The term is taken from the Latin intelligentia (power of discerning, literally “choosing among [options]”); it’s a key characteristic of adventurers. In Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s intelligence modifier determines everything from her capacity to learn new languages to her ability to memorize and cast spells. See: resolve, wisdom, wit

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INTREPID

The term intrepid, which means “bold, fearless” and which is taken from the Latin in (not) + trepidus (alarmed), was popularized by Dryden’s introduction to his 1697 Aeneid translation. Dryden cautions that “valor, destitute of other virtues, cannot render a man worthy of any true esteem. That quality, which signifies no more than an intrepid courage, may be separated from many others which are good, and accompanied with many which are ill.” Many warships have been named Intrepid, and so was nasa’s Lunar Module that landed on the Moon in 1969. See: bold, brave IRISH

For a person of Irish ancestry to say that an insult or injustice raised the Irish in me or got my Irish up, is to say that it made them not merely upset or angry but fighting mad. In a similar vein, an Irish hint is a threat, while Irish confetti refers to stones thrown in a brawl. Depending on who’s using such idioms, these days, they can be amusing or offensive. See: banjax, ruckus

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JACK

The nickname Jack has been employed, since the eighteenth century, as slang for tough, hardworking types including lumberjacks, jack tars, and jacks of all trades. Going farther back, English and American legends, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes – “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Jack Frost,” “Jack the Giant Killer,” etc. – are replete with clever young adventurers of that name. ps: There’s a theory that the name is Celtic in origin, meaning “healthy, strong, full of vital energy.” JAUNT

A short trip taken for pleasure can be described as a jaunt. The term may be derived from the Scottish dialect word jaunder (idle, rambling talk) or else from the term jaunty (displaying well-bred sprightliness; this word appears to be a misheard version of the French gentil). Fun fact: Ever since Alfred Bester’s 1957 novel The Stars My Destination, science-fiction writers have used the term jaunt as futuristic slang meaning “travel by teleportation.” See: excursion

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JEOPARDY

Originally a technical chess term, one referring to a position in which a player’s chances of winning and losing hang in the balance, the term jeopardy is an adaptation and contraction of the medieval Latin phrase jocus partitus (literally, “divided game”). Over time, the sense of “risk of loss, peril, danger” has attached itself to the word. See: gambit JINK

The Scottish dialect term jink, meaning “make a sharp evasive manoeuvre, move quickly and unexpectedly,” is imaginatively onomatopoeic – that is to say, its sound seems to express the sense of a sudden, nimble motion. Originally used to describe the tricky manoeuvres of a wild boar at bay, the term caught on first among rugby players, then among wwii-era fighter pilots. To give the jink is to give the slip. ps: The earlier Scottish dialect term juke also means “dodge.” See: dodge JINX

A jinx, in superstition and folklore, is a curse or the attribute of attracting bad luck. As a word

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meaning “charm, spell,” jinx dates to the seventeenth century; the ultimate derivation of the term is the Greek name (Ἴυγξ) for a nymph associated with magical love-charms. The term was popularized in the late nineteenth century by a musical comedy character, Jinks Hoodoo. See: auspicious JOHN WAYNE

A man who takes daring action, in a self-consciously heroic mode, is sometimes described as a John Wayne – in semifacetious reference to the movie star famous for his portrayal of cowboys and military men. In Joseph Wambaugh’s 1972 cop adventure Blue Knight, a character says, “Nothing I like better than John Wayneing a goddamn door” – that is, kicking it open and charging inside. Fun fact: In military jargon, a John Wayne cookie is a nearly inedible biscuit. JOIE DE VIVRE

La joie de vivre, a novel serialized in 1883 by Émile Zola, helped transform the French phrase – which expresses spontaneous, relaxed enjoyment – into a secular religion, of sorts, in which nothing is valued more highly than enthusiasm, energy, and spontaneity.

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JOURNEY

A journey is a continued course of travelling over land – as opposed to over water or by air – to some distant point. The medieval term, which is derived from the French journée (a day’s length), originally described a single day’s worth of travel. These days, the term refers instead to long-distance travel, typically by car, also called a road trip. See: voyage JURY-RIGGED

In nautical argot, when one is forced to fashion an improvised rigging from whatever materials are available, it’s called jury-rigging. The use of jury, by sailors, to mean “temporary” may derive from the Old French ajurie (help, aid). The expression has come to mean, more generally, “create a makeshift solution from resources at hand.” See: lashup, m ac gyver KAPUT

Shortly after wwi, the German slang term kaput, which means “done for, destroyed, rendered useless,” was popularized in English usage. Like several other adventure terms in

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this glossary, this one was inspired by a popular game. When playing the French two-player card game piquet, in the unlikely event that one loses all twelve tricks, one’s opponent can score a game-ending forty points. This trickless state of affairs is known as being capot. See: dicey, hazard KAYFABE

The illusion, not to mention the upkeep of the illusion, that professional wrestling is not staged is known as kayfabe. The invented word, which is often said to have originated in travelling carnivals, may be derived from a distorted Pig Latin pronunciation of fake. When a wrestler is said to break kayfabe, it means that he or she is acting out of character. See: face, heel KEEN

The Old English word from which keen derives can mean either “bold, brave” or “expert, skilful, clever”; either way, it’s a crucial quality for adventurers. The sense of “eager, ardent” dates to the early fourteenth century, and the term has also come to mean “sharp-pointed, sharpedged.” To say that someone has a keen mind

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is to suggest the ability to observe details and see them as part of a larger pattern; in Old West slang, a keener was a person shrewd in bargaining. See: acumen, eager KEMO SABE

This term, supposedly meaning “faithful friend,” was introduced in 1933 on The Lone Ranger radio show; it was a catchphrase of Tonto’s, the Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick. The show’s director appropriated the term from a Michigan boy’s camp. The camp, meanwhile, had appropriated the term from Ernest Thompson Seton, one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America; he claimed, though this no longer seems plausible, that it meant “scout runner.” KENTUCKY WINDAGE

In wwii-era military argot, the phrase Kentucky windage – the allowance made for the effect of wind upon the accuracy of a rifle shot – acknowledged the uncanny ability of Bluegrass State backwoodsmen to allow for crosswinds when adjusting their

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aim. Fun fact: The wwi sharpshooter Alvin York hailed from the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. KIBOSH

To put the kibosh on something is to stop, finish, quash it. The early nineteenth-century phrase is of uncertain origin; the suggestion that it derives from Yiddish is without foundation. It has also been suggested that the phrase was a misheard version of the Irish phrase caidhp bháis (“death cap”), which is to say the hood placed over someone’s head before they were hanged. KICK ASS

As a verb, in 1970s slang, the phrase kick ass means “act roughly or aggressively”; in a more positive sense, it has also come to mean “be assertive” and “do an amazing job.” As an adjective, kick-ass formerly meant “pugnacious”; now it means “awesome, admirable.” See: badass KIMCHI (IN DEEP)

This Korean War-era military jargon meaning “in big trouble” is a euphemism for in deep shit.

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Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish of salted and fermented vegetables; traditionally, it was stored in-ground in large earthenware, to slow down the fermentation process. KING-HELL

A king-hell knee to the groin, in midcentury slang, is a particularly brutal blow, while a king-hell war story is a particularly graphic one. The expression means “formidable in impact, violence, or size.” ps: King means “first-class, superlative” in Australian slang. KING MIXER

A mixer is a troublemaker, someone who stirs things up; to mix it up is to fight, in nineteenthcentury slang, while a mix or mix-up is a fight or brawl. A king mixer, then, is a prankster who’s turned troublemaking into something resembling an art form. The British slang term was memorably employed by Paul McCartney in the 1964 musical comedy A Hard Day’s Night. KNIGHTLY

A knight is a man granted an honorary title for military service to a monarch or church; the

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term derives from the Old Saxon word for “soldier.” By the Late Middle Ages, thanks to the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to Charlemagne and his paladins, and the Matter of Britain, relating to the legend of King Arthur and his knights, the rank of knight had become associated with chivalry. Knightly means “gallant, noble.” See: chivalry, paladin KNIGHT ERRANT

In Chivalric Romance, a landless knight errant would wander about the countryside, searching for wrongs to right and ladies to rescue. The literary trope was refurbished in the twentieth century by movies about rootless samurai, cowboys, wuxia heroes, and other adventurers – all of whom typically have a mysterious past and (despite their sinister appearance) a heart of gold. See: drifter KNOCK

To knock is to strike a particularly sharp, forceful blow; the Old Norse word knoka is – like bang, splash, and similar words – most likely of echoic origin. In eighteenth-century slang, to

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knock is to flabbergast, stun – as in such phrases as knock ’em dead, knock one’s socks off. Meanwhile, to knock someone’s block off or knock someone into a cocked hat is to thrash that person senseless. See: clobberin’ time (it’s) KNOW-HOW

Practical, often tacit knowledge of how to accomplish something is colloquially called know-how. The ability to speak a language, for example, or ride a bicycle, play a musical instrument, or use complex equipment, requires know-how that can be difficult or impossible to transfer to others through instructions alone. Such abilities can only be learned by doing them. KNUCKLE UP

The 1960s slang phrase knuckle up means “fistfight.” A knuckle poultice, in nineteenth-century slang, is a punch in the face, while a knuckle sandwich, in 1970s slang, is a punch in the mouth. ps: The nineteenth-century colloquial phrase near the knuckle meant “close to the accepted limits of behaviour”; today, it has in-

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stead come to mean “potentially offensive humour.” See: put up your dukes L ABONZA

To punch an opponent “right in the labonza,” as a character in the 1934 boxing comedy Palooka boasts, is to knock the wind out of them. The slang term, meaning “pit of the stomach,” doubtlessly derives from the Italian phrase la pancia (the paunch, the belly). L AM

Often uttered as an urgent directive to one’s fellow ne’er-do-wells when the police are spotted, the British slang verb lam, meaning “run off,” dates to the late nineteenth century. The term has since become a noun, as in such expressions as do a lam, make a lam, hit the lam. One who is on the lam is one who is on the run, i.e., wanted by the authorities. L ANCER

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, the term lancer denoted a cavalry soldier armed with a lance – during the Napoleonic

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Wars, fearsome lancers were deployed for their shock-and-awe value. By the 1920s, though, most armies had ceased using them; today, a lancer regiment denotes an armoured unit. The tv Tropes wiki uses the term lancer to classify the agonistic partner of an adventure story’s main character. Sir Kay, King Arthur’s surly but fiercely loyal foster brother, is a classic example of the type. See: élan, freelancer L ASHUP

In nineteenth-century nautical argot, a lashup is a hastily constructed, temporary contrivance. Its original meaning is a literal one: “anything untidily put together or insecurely lashed (bound or fastened with rope).” The term survives today among engineers. It can also be used to describe a difficult or unpleasant state of affairs or undertaking. See: haywire, jury-rigged L AST-DITCH EFFORT

A last-ditch effort is one waged with desperation or unyielding defiance. The battlefield phrase last ditch, meaning “a place of final defence or resort,” dates to the early eighteenth century; a last-ditcher is an irreconcilable com-

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batant, someone who refuses to surrender or abandon her post. Also: last chance, last resort, last gasp. L AY

Lay is eighteenth-century thieves’ argot meaning “enterprise, undertaking” and also “scheme, plan.” It could be used to distinguish between criminal specialties: fam layers shoplifted from jewellery stores, for example, while mill layers broke into houses and prad layers sliced open saddlebags. To be on the lay is to lead a life of crime. LEAD OUT (GET THE)

To get the lead out (i.e., of one’s pants, shoes, feet, ass, etc.), in wwi military jargon, is to hurry up. “Shake the lead out of your butt,” says a character in the 1948 novel 12 O’Clock High!, about aircrews in the US Army’s Eighth Air Force. Though antiquated, the idiom has survived: “Come on, Homer! Get the lead out!” says Bart Simpson to his father, in a Simpsons episode. LEAVE-YOUR-QUEST TEST

A tempting opportunity, presented to adventurers, to abandon their mission once the going

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gets tough. “She seemed to be looking inside me,” the hobbit Sam recounts, after encountering the Lady Galadriel as he and his comrades were making their way toward Mordor, “and asking me what I would do if she gave me the chance of flying back home to the Shire to a nice little hole with a bit of garden of my own.” The phrase is from the tv Tropes wiki. LEERY

The etymology of the eighteenth-century slang term leery, originally meaning “wide-awake, clever, on the alert,” is uncertain. It may or may not be derived from leer (to look obliquely or askance; to cast side glances). Today, it is most often used to mean “suspicious, distrustful.” See: heads up LEEWARD (TO)

In nautical combat, a windward vessel has an advantage over a leeward (downwind) one. The warship to windward can choose when to engage and when to withdraw; also, because a ship heels away from the wind, the leeward vessel in a battle must expose part of her bottom to shot. In nonnautical contexts, the phrase means “at a grave disadvantage.” See: look to windward

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LIBERT Y

Whereas freedom represents the unrestrained ability to fulfill one’s desires, liberty entails something more realistic but still to be fiercely cherished: the responsible use of freedom within society, under the rule of law, i.e., free from arbitrary restraints on one’s way of life, behaviour, or views. The exercise of our liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others. The word is taken directly from the Latin libertas, and ultimately from liber (unrestrained). See: freedom LIGHT OUT

The Southern and Western slang term light out, meaning “hurry off,” has now become colloquial. To light out for parts unknown is to abandon a settled life in favour of a nomadic one; as Twain’s Huckleberry Finn puts it, “When I couldn’t stand it no longer, I lit out.” The expression’s origin is a nautical one: A lighter is a barge that moves heavy objects, so light out may have expressed the sense of an unloaded cargo ship’s rapid, unrestricted movement. See: absquatulate, vamoose

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LOADED FOR BEAR

The nineteenth-century term loaded for bear literally referred to shot-shells so heavily loaded, i.e., for bear-hunting, that the gun would kick when fired. It has since come to mean “fully prepared or equipped,” i.e., for whatever may come, not to mention “grimly determined.” LOCK AND LOAD

The military imperative lock and load, literally meaning “chamber a round for firing,” dates to wwii; it was supposedly an instructional command to prepare an M1 Garand, the standard US service rifle. Popularized in 1949 by John Wayne in the movie Sands of Iwo Jima, the expression has come to mean, more generally, “prepare for imminent action or confrontation.” See: drop the hammer LOOK TO WINDWARD

The nautical directive look to windward means “keep an eye out for enemies,” i.e., because enemy ships seeking the tactical advantage would attempt to approach from the direction from which the wind is blowing. Iain M. Banks’s sci-fi novel Look to Windward (2000)

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borrows its title from an ominous line, warning sailors “who turn the wheel and look to windward” that disaster can strike at any time, in T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem “The Waste Land.” See: leeward (to) LOOKOUT

The seventeenth-century term lookout, meaning literally “the action or duty of keeping watch” and figuratively “the faculty of vigilance,” is – like many adventure terms – nautical in origin. On a ship, the lookout is a position on the bridge used as a vantage point; a person described as a lookout is someone stationed to keep watch for trouble (or, in a criminal context, for the cops). ps: In 1930s juvenile delinquent slang, to keep chickie is to act as a lookout. See: vigilant LUCKY

Luck, originally a Dutch or German word meaning “happiness, good fortune,” was likely first borrowed in medieval English as a gambling term. The term lucky refers to a person’s apparent tendency to have good or ill fortune – that is to say, to experience situations or events either favourable or unfavourable to their inter-

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ests. Fun fact: Before the adoption of luck, the notion of “good fortune” was expressed in English with the word speed – as in the expression “God speed” – which is associated with divine help, i.e., rather than fickle chance. See: adventure, chance, hazard M AC GUFFIN

A MacGuffin is “the mechanical element that usually crops up in any [adventure] story,” Alfred Hitchcock explained about his 1935 film The 39 Steps. “In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers.” Like a game, an adventure story has “mechanics” – rules and procedures that define the player’s objective and create satisfying challenges – some of which are more obviously artificial than others. ps: Postmodern adventures, like Pynchon’s V. or Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, often feature obtrusively meaningless MacGuffins. M AC GYVER

Richard Dean Anderson portrayed the titular field agent (for an independent think tank!) in the 1985–92 tv series MacGyver. Because the character, who eschewed a gun in favour of a

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Swiss Army knife and duct tape, was known for his resourcefulness, MacGyver has evolved into a slang verb meaning “construct, fix, or modify something by ingenious improvisation, using everyday items that would not usually be used for the purpose; adapt expediently.” See: jury-rigged MAHOSKA

The Irish expression mo thosca (my business) seems to be the source for the early twentiethcentury underworld slang mahoska – meaning a weapon, contraband, or anything else of importance or interest that must be kept a secret. Compare the Italian American mafioso term for the so-called Mafia, costra nostra, which literally means “our thing.” MAIN CHANCE

The seventeenth-century underworld phrase main chance alludes to the elusive opportunity, for the bold in spirit, of succeeding against the odds. To have an eye to the main chance is to remain ready to use each and every situation to your own advantage. The phrase may have been borrowed from the English dice game Hazard, in which one specifies a “main” (a

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number between five and nine), and then – if one neither nicks nor throws out, first – rolls a “chance.” Also: mind one’s chances. See: chance, hazard MAINTAIN

The literal meaning of maintain – a term derived, via Old French, from the Latin manu (hand) + tenere (hold) – is “firmly hold,” and by extension, “defend (a place, position, or possession) against hostility or attack.” The figurative sense of maintain, “carry on, keep up,” is a later development. In African American slang, to maintain and remain is to persist, survive. MAKE A MOVE

The midcentury slang phrase make a move, meaning “act decisively, suddenly, or sneakily,” portrays life as a game that must be played skilfully in order to succeed. It echoes the nineteenth-century usage of the term move to mean “trick, manoeuvre, stratagem.” ps: In hip-hop slang bust a move means “run over there without a second to lose,” i.e., to show off your dancing prowess. See: gambit, game

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MAKE ONE’S BONES

The gangster argot phrase make one’s bones was popularized in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and its 1972 movie adaptation. (“Sonofabitch! Do you know who I am? I’m Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!”) It means “commit a murder in order to be respected in a gang” and, in less violent contexts, “earn respect the hard way.” MANOEUVRE

Among individuals, a manoeuvre is an adroit, well-planned stratagem. The term is originally a military and nautical one derived, via French, from the Latin manu (hand) + operari (work, operate); it literally means “manual labour,” e.g., to adjust a ship’s rigging. By extension, it has come to mean “tactical or strategic movement.” MAQUIS

During the German occupation of France in 1940–45, men and women who escaped into the mountains to avoid providing forced labour organized themselves into active resistance groups. The mountain terrain was cov-

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ered with a scrub growth called maquis, so these guerrilla bands soon became known as the Maquis or maquisards. The term was soon extended to movements in Italy, Belgium, and other occupied countries regardless of what sort of plant life was found there. See: guerrilla, resistance MAVERICK

In the Old West, an unbranded calf was known as a maverick – after the name of a Texas rancher, Samuel Maverick, who stubbornly refused to brand his calves, which often went astray. The term came to mean “unorthodox or independent-minded person.” Republican Senator John McCain, who did not always conform to the views of his own party, made this moniker his own. MERCENARY

A professional soldier in foreign or private services, who has no higher motive than getting paid, is a mercenary. The fourteenth-century term, which derives from the Latin merces (wages), was a pejorative; today, though, mercenaries – from the Magnificent Seven to the Expendables – are cool. The term has become

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a synonym for “hireling,” i.e., someone whose motivation is crass. See: freelancer METTLE

When Prince Hal brags, in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, pt. 1, that his drinking buddies call him “a lad of metall,” he’s not confessing that he’s secretly a robot. The term mettle – a person’s spiritedness, courage, strength of character – was originally a variant of metal. To show one’s mettle is to demonstrate one’s spirit or courage. A mettlesome person (or horse) is high-spirited. MICROADVENTURE

Alastair Humphreys, who spent four years bicycling around the world, rowed across the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean, and walked across the Empty Quarter desert, among other feats, has in recent years popularized the practice of short, simple, local, cheap microadventures – i.e., camping out in a local park, exploring the city by moonlight – that are accessible for everyone.

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MILQUETOAST

Sugared milk toast was once a popular breakfast; its limpness, however, inspired the name of Caspar Milquetoast, wimpy protagonist of the 1920s–30s comic strip Timid Soul. By 1930, the name was being referenced as a type of meek, ineffectual man. Note that the contemptuous fourteenth-century term milksop meant the same thing. MISSION

The sixteenth-century term mission, meaning “a sending abroad,” was coined by the Jesuits; it is derived from the Latin mittere (let go, send). In its original context, the term came to mean “an organized effort for the spread of religion.” In a secular sense, the term was adopted to describe the sending of diplomats and envoys to other countries; by the late seventeenth century it simply meant “that for which one is sent.” But to this day, an extramundane aura clings to the word. The expression man on a mission suggests an undertaking to which one feels called, while the term’s use in aviation and space exploration, since the 1920s, has literally been an extramundane one. See: agent

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MOB-HANDED

Although the 1930s-era British colloquialism mob-handed is often used to mean “forming a large group of gangsters or ruffians,” it can also describe a large group of policemen, say, or bicyclists, or any other sort of person. (To mob up, in 1920s US slang, meanwhile, means “go into illicit partnership with.”) Showing up for an ordeal mob-handed is often a wise move for adventurers. See: roll deep MOJO

Originally, this African American slang term meant “magical power, voodoo”; it is likely derived from the Gullah – that is, South Carolina Creole – term moco (witchcraft). More generally, mojo is often used to describe a person’s power, force, influence. To get one’s mojo working is to work one’s magic. Fun fact: The repeated phrase “Mr Mojo Risin,” heard in the Doors song “L.A. Woman.” is an anagram of band frontman Jim Morrison’s name. MONEY (ON THE)

The wwii-era phrase on the money was originally used to describe tuning an engine perfectly, or landing a plane precisely; it was later

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generalized to mean “correct, right, exactly on target.” The phrase’s derivation is unclear. ps: A money player, in 1920s-era sporting slang, is one who performs well under the pressure of intense competition; she always delivers the goods. MOXIE

One of the first mass-produced soft drinks in America was manufactured in Bedford, nh, in the 1880s; originally, it was a patent medicine marketed as a cure-all for modern life’s complaints, from low energy to feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps this explains why the product’s name, Moxie, in the 1930s came to mean “the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage” – and by extension, “vigour” and “initiative.” MURPHY’S L AW

Captain Ed Murphy, an engineer who conducted experimental crash research testing at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, reportedly said something along the lines of “If anything can go wrong, it will.” Although he was far from the first to express this notion, Murphy’s cautionary pronunciamento was popularized – at first particularly among aviation engineers, then

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more widely – and called, ironically, Murphy’s Law. In Great Britain, Sod’s law, no doubt derived from the commiserating phrase “unlucky sod,” expresses more or less the same idea. MYRMIDON

The Myrmidons were a warlike people of ancient Thessaly; in The Iliad, they were the soldiers commanded by Achilles. The seventeenth-century sense in which the term myrmidon can be used to mean “unquestioning follower,” with a suggestion of unscrupulousness, can be traced to the folk etymology wherein a Myrmidon is not a bold warrior but merely a transformed ant (myrmex). NERVE (THE)

The Latin word nervus referred primarily to the axon transmitting electrochemical impulses from the central nervous system and secondarily to a person’s strength, vigour, energy. The use of nerve to mean “courage,” as in the expressions nerves of steel or war of nerves, dates to the seventeenth century. For a delightful explication of the term, see Arlen and Harburg’s “If I Only Had the Nerve,”

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as sung by the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 movie musical The Wizard of Oz. See: courage NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS

“The possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field,” the android C-3PO tells Han Solo in the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, “is approximately 3,720 to 1.” Solo’s brusque reply – “Never tell me the odds!” – has become a much imitated, meme-worthy expression of bravado. There are many ways in which one can violate the normative rules of decision-making with respect to probability; Han Solo’s is a particularly cool example. NINJA

In feudal Japan, a ninja was a mercenary who favoured stealth tactics; in fact, the term comes from a Chinese pronunciation of characters meaning “one trained in the art of stealth.” Over time, ninjas became warriors who specialized in covert intelligence gathering and combat mastery; one of the first western uses of the word was in Ian Fleming’s 1964 James Bond novel You Only Live Twice. In extended use

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today, a ninja is someone who excels at a particular skill. See: samurai NOMAD

The sixteenth-century term nomad is taken from the Latin word used to mean “member of a people that travels from place to place to find fresh pasture for its animals.” (The Latin term is itself derived from νομός, Greek for “pasturage.”) In an adventure context, a nomad is an itinerant drifter: “A nomad I will remain for life,” the cross-dressing, courageous Swiss explorer Isabelle Eberhardt wrote in her diary, “in love with distant and uncharted places.” See: drifter NOUS

The British colloquialism nous, meaning “common sense, practical intelligence,” is borrowed from νοῦς, the Greek word for “mind, intellect.” In classical philosophy, nous is the faculty of mind necessary for apprehending eternal intelligible substances, aka intuitive apprehension. See: savvy, wit

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NUTS

Nuts is slang for “testicles” – and, like balls, the term can be used to mean “manly courage.” But the term can also be an expression of contempt. In 1944, when German armoured divisions surrounded the US Army’s 101st Airborne in Bastogne and demanded their surrender, General McAuliffe replied, in a single-word message, “To the German Commander: nuts!” See: ballsy ODYSSEY

The Odyssey is one of two hexametric epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, the other being The Iliad. It describes the ten years’ wanderings of Odysseus (Ulysses) on his way home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. In extended use, an odyssey is any long adventurous journey or voyage that eventually ends – let’s not overlook this aspect – with one’s reaggregation into society. After all, as the fictional poet Odo suggests, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 sci-fi novel The Dispossessed, “To be whole is to be part; / true voyage is return.” See: epic

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OMERTÀ

Typically observed in Italian ethnic enclaves, an omertà is a code of silence valorizing a refusal to cooperate with authorities or outsiders – even though such a refusal may aid and abet criminal activity. The Sicilian term, which may derive from the Spanish word hombredad (manliness), was first recorded in the nineteenth century; the practice itself, however, is much older than that. ONWARD AND UPWARD

The most often used translation of the Latin motto Excelsior is onward and upward. It’s an encouraging expression used to raise morale and keep a team moving ahead. Another version – “further up and further in” – is what the characters in C.S. Lewis’s Last Battle shout to one another as they begin their exploration of Aslan’s Country. See: excelsior ORPED

The Middle English term orped, meaning “active, alert, vigorous,” was exclusively used to describe knights. It is derived from an Old English word meaning “full of strength.” It has been suggested that the term originally meant

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“without a cloak” – i.e., ready for battle – which is a fun notion; however, the oed finds this etymology unpersuasive. ORIENTEERING

Originally a training exercise in land navigation for future military officers, orienteering – in which one crosses unknown terrain with the aid of a map and compass – was invented in the 1880s at a Swedish military academy; today, it’s a competitive game. The term derives from orient or orientate, meaning literally “turn to the east” – that is, put oneself in the proper position in relation to unfamiliar surroundings, in order to determine the best route to one’s destination. OSCAR MIKE

Oscar and Mike are the names associated with the nato phonetic letters O and M. To be Oscar Mike, in military jargon, is to be “on the move.” Fun fact: In the videogame Battleborn, Oscar Mike is a discarded clone soldier from a long-forgotten war. See: able sugar, whiskey tango foxtrot

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OUTFIT

In Old West argot, an outfit is any object, item, or device that one might possess – from a horse to a suit of clothes to a pocketknife. It was also used to describe a group of cowboys or explorers. The military use of the term – as a synonym for “unit” – dates back to the 1860s, but it doesn’t seem to have been standardized until wwi. OUTL AW

The Old English term outlaw was originally a legal one, describing a person literally deprived of the law’s benefits and protection; in the thirteenth century, it also came to mean “miscreant, felon, especially one on the run.” In weakened use, today, an outlaw is a renegade, one who behaves in an unorthodox way, a person with no regard for the law. OUTSIDE THE WIRE

In Iraq War-era military jargon, to be outside the wire is to venture beyond the security perimeter surrounding the forward operating base (fob), i.e., for the purpose of smoking a

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cigarette or some other forbidden activity. By extension, the idiom has come to mean “doing something risky, on your own” – unsupported, that is to say, and possibly unauthorized. OVER THE TOP

To climb over the parapet of a trench and dash into battle, in wwi-era military jargon, was to go over the top. By the 1930s, this literal phrase had evolved into a figurative colloquialism meaning “to an excessive degree.” In British slang: ott. OVERSKUD

If a Dane isn’t up to coping with a difficult challenge, he may lament that he doesn’t have the overskud – that is to say, he lacks energy above and beyond what’s normal. The popular slang term is derived from the German Überschuss (excess). ps: The Danish term overmod, meanwhile, which means “too much heart,” tends to be a pejorative synonym for “hubris.” PACKING

The slang term packing, meaning “carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person,” dates back at least as far as the 1943 movie Pistol Packin’ Mama. It has remained current: “I piggedy-

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pack steel,” boasts the 1992 song “Mic Checka” by Das efx. “I got a big gun.” See: heeled PAL ADIN

In medieval French courtly literature, Charlemagne’s twelve foremost knights include Roland, Oliver, Ogier the Dane, and sometimes the Saracen giant Fierabras. English translations called these knightly comrades, renowned for heroism and chivalry, paladins – a term derived, via French, from the Latin palatinus (high-level royal official). See: chivalry, knightly PALOOKA

Joe Palooka was a popular 1930s–50s comic strip, by Ham Fisher, about a well-meaning but clumsy prizefighter’s adventures. The slang term palooka, which means “lout, inept prizefighter,” is of uncertain derivation; it first appeared in the 1920s. ps: The title of the bubblegum comic Bazooka Joe, which began publishing in 1953, is a pun on Joe Palooka. PANENKA

The Czech slang term panenka, which generally means “a trick to confuse your opponent,”

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refers to a winning penalty kick made by Czech footballer Antonin Panenka in the final of the 1976 European Championships. Instead of shooting the ball with power to the left or right side of the goal, as might have been expected, Panenka sneakily chipped it dead centre. See: gambit PANIC

The seventeenth-century term panic was originally used allusively; the fear one might feel in the wilderness was attributed to the influence of Pan, the Greek god once believed to dwell in such places. Today, the term means “sudden fear of sufficient intensity as to lead to wildly unthinking behaviour.” ps: The expression hit the panic button emerged in the 1950s among military pilots – whose instinct, when alarmed, was to start pushing buttons and flipping switches. PARKOUR

In the years between wwi and wwii, French naval officer Georges Hébert developed a system of physical education inspired not only by the opportunities to run, jump, balance, climb, etc., while aboard a ship but also by nondesigned environments. Hébert’s parcours du

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combattant (obstacle course) has become standard for military training worldwide, and it is the inspiration for parkour, the urban activity in which one athletically and ingeniously moves around, across, over, and under found obstacles. PARLEY

The term parley is derived from French parler (speak, discuss); it originally meant “conference with an enemy,” i.e., for discussing the mutual arrangement of matters such as terms for an armistice. In a weaker sense, it is used to describe a meeting between opposing sides in a dispute. PATRIOT

The term patriot – derived from the Greek for “fellow-countryman” – originally described someone who loves his or her homeland. Alas, the word has been co-opted by my-country-right-or-wrong nationalists. “I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism,” laments Estraven, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 sci-fi novel The Left Hand of Darkness. “I mean fear. The fear of the other.”

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PELL-MELL

The adjective pell-mell, meaning “in a confused throng,” was borrowed, in a mangled form, from French – where it seems to have once been a phrase such as pesle et mesle (flee and mingle). Originally used in military contexts, the term described combat situations – including but not restricted to disorderly retreats – in which one can’t readily distinguish friend from foe. PEREGRINATION

To sojourn abroad is to peregrinate. The term is derived from the Latin per (away) + ager (territory, country). Although it originally referred to a religious pilgrimage, in secular usage, peregrination usually describes travelling, in a meandering way, on foot. See: pilgrimage, roam PERIL

The medieval word peril is an Anglo-Norman one, derived from the Latin periculum (dangerous test, trial). It describes a situation in which one is exposed to the chance of injury, loss, or death. To do something at all perils is to do it at whatever risk. Fun fact: Imminent peril, mean-

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ing “danger that is menacingly close at hand,” is a legal concept. See: danger PICARESQUE

The fictional adventures of a roguish, low-class, yet appealing hero who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society is known as a picaresque. Its protagonist, the picaro – the Spanish term means “rogue, scoundrel” – seeks escape not only from the strictures of an enlightened, modern social order but, in a metatextual sense, from the imposition of narrative structure itself. See: drifter PILGRIMAGE

A voyage or journey undertaken to a place of particular significance is a pilgrimage. The term pilgrim comes from the same Latin root as peregrination; before the English Separatists who crossed the Atlantic in 1620 appropriated the term, it was used to mean “foreigner, traveller.” The Chinese monk Xuanzang, who made a trek to India in the seventh century, expressed the pilgrim’s ethos: “I would rather die going to the west than live by staying in the east.” See: peregrination

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PIRATE

The Latin word pirata is derived from a Greek term meaning “one who attempts, tries, attacks.” Since the early fourteenth century, the term has been employed to describe a sea-robber who makes a habit of seizing other ships’ property. Many of the stereotypes we associate with pirates – e.g., peg legs, eyepatches, walking the plank, burying treasure, marking maps with an “X” – come from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1881–82). Fun fact: Recent scholarship tends to suggest that piracy was more egalitarian than other areas of employment during that period. See: treasure hunt PL AY THE ANGLES

To play or work the angles is to advance one’s self-interest by making split-second decisions in an extremely strategic, even crafty way. The figurative expression is derived from athletic contests, such as ice hockey, which allow a ball or puck to rebound or ricochet into the target. See: fluke

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PLUCK

The slang phrase pluck, meaning “courage, high spirits,” takes its sense from the folksy, traditional notion that courage resides in the heart and/or entrails. These organs were called the pluck, likely because they were sharply tugged out of an animal’s body, for use as food. See: guts, heart POINT (ON)

Perhaps the only idiom equally popular among ballerinas and hip-hop artists is on point, meaning “performing well.” (For example: “On point and reactin’, and ready for action,” brags Rakim in Eric B. & Rakim’s 1990 song “In the Ghetto.”) For dancers, the expression is a literal one that describes the incredibly difficult feat of dancing on the tips of one’s toes. POSSE

The Latin phrase posse comitatus (force of the county) is a legal one meaning “population of able-bodied men in a county whom the sheriff may summon,” i.e., to repress a riot, pursue felons, and so forth. In the seventeenth century,

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posse came to describe a force, band, or company assembled with hostile intent. By the 1980s the term had entered African American slang, by way of Western movies, as a description of a gang involved in crime … or, more innocently, one’s group of friends. See: squad PREPPER

The term prepper, meaning “survivalist,” came into common usage in the 1990s. A prepper anticipates – half-fearfully, half-gleefully – a natural disaster, terrorist attack, financial collapse, pandemic, unusual cosmic event, etc., that will end civilization. Once the unthinkable happens, they intend to live off the grid securely and in relative comfort, thanks to their prep work. See: survival PROPÆDEUTIC ENCHIRIDION

An enchiridion is a handbook; for example, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius carried the Enchiridion of Epictetus to war inside his breastplate. And a propædeutic is a preliminary teaching, for beginners. The concept of a propædeutic enchiridion that helps train young-

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sters to become adventurous adults is a fun one: Fictional examples range from the Junior Woodchucks’ Guidebook, in Carl Barks’s Donald Duck comics, to the interactive A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, in Neal Stephenson’s 1995 sci-fi novel The Diamond Age. PULL CHOCKS

To pull chocks, in military argot, means “depart, take off.” A chock is a block or wedge placed closely against the wheel of an aircraft, i.e., to keep it stationary. Other military phrases meaning the same thing include grab a hat, heave out and lash up, sling one’s hook. PUNCH OUT

As seen elsewhere in this glossary, aviation and fighter-pilot lingo has – since the days of wwi – bequeathed us innumerable now-common expressions. Among those flying terms which this book’s reader is encouraged to start using – one thinks of bent (inoperative), say, or bingo (low on fuel) or tally (enemy in sight) – is punch out, meaning “eject from an airplane.” See: bail

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PUSH THE ENVELOPE

The phrase push the envelope originated in the world of aeronautics, where a “flight envelope” is an operating boundary. A test pilot’s job is to approach or go beyond the limits of an aircraft’s performance; the expression was popularized by Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff. Today it used to mean “exceed or extend the boundaries of what is considered possible or permissible.” See: ahead of the curve PUT ENGLISH ON

The nineteenth-century phrase put English on (a shot) comes from the game of billiards, in which context it means “purposely strike a ball on one side rather than centrally.” The expression is thought to derive not from the nationality but the name of the billiards player who first popularized the technique. Fun fact: In archery, the phrase is used to describe pushing the bow’s sight back into the target’s middle in the moment after releasing the arrow. See: 8-ball (behind the), fluke

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PUT UP YOUR DUKES

To direct someone to put up your dukes is to challenge them to a bout of fisticuffs. But how did dukes come to be boxing argot for “fists,” one wonders. One theory suggests that the colloquialism is Romany in origin; another one, which is quite persuasive, suggests that the Cockney slang term forks, meaning “fingers,” became first Duke of Yorks and then simply dukes. ps: In 1930s African American slang, to duke it out means “fistfight.” See: knuckle up QUALM

The sixteenth-century term qualm, meaning “pang of sickening fear” or, less dramatically, “scruple of conscience,” is likely a mashup of a Scandinavian word meaning “vapours believed to cause a feeling of sickness” and an Old English word meaning “calamity.” To do something without a qualm is to do so without worrying about whether it’s right. QUANDARY

The invented term quandary, meaning “a state of extreme perplexity, a difficult dilemma,”

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originated as a joke among students at Oxford University in the sixteenth century. It could be an example of macaronic Latin punning on the French phrase “Qu’en dirai-je” – that is, “What shall I say of it?” Another theory suggests that it is a quasi-Latinism based on quando (“when?”). See: dilemma QUARRY

The French sporting term quarry, which generally means “an object of pursuit,” e.g., a rabbit fleeing hunters, originally meant “parts of a deer carcass given to hunting dogs as a reward.” It may be derived from the Vulgar Latin corata (entrails); it’s also speculated that the term is derived from the Latin corium (skin), i.e., the animal’s hide, on which its entrails were placed. See: heart, pluck QUEST

A quest is a lengthy, ambitious, often fervent journey in pursuit of a meaningful goal. In chivalric romance this Anglo-Norman term, which derives from the Latin quaerere (seek), describes an expedition undertaken by knights to obtain some particular object – most fa-

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mously, the Holy Grail – or achieve some particular exploit. Quest is an early example of official-ese; a knight wouldn’t have dreamed of embarking upon one without the proper authorization. QUICK ON THE UPTAKE

Uptake is a Scottish colloquialism, popularized by Walter Scott, meaning “the action of, or capacity for, comprehension.” Being quick on the uptake is a good thing, for adventurers. Fun fact: This is a rare example of an expression whose meaning was figurative before it was literal. In the nineteenth century, a pipe leading up from the smoke box of a steam boiler to the chimney began to be called an uptake; more recently, scientists began using the term to describe the taking in or absorption of a substance by a living organism or bodily organ. See: intelligence, resolve QUIXOTIC

Alonso Quixano, the protagonist of Miguel de Cervantes’s sardonic, yet not entirely cynical, novel Don Quixote (1605–15), is motivated by exaggerated, highly romanticized notions of chivalry. Renaming himself Don Quixote de

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la Mancha – a quixote is a medieval suit of armour’s thigh-piece – the hapless adventurer sets out to perform knightly feats. The term quixotic has come to mean “naively idealistic, visionary in a misguided way, whimsical.” See: chivalry, knightly RAFFISH

The eighteenth-century slang term raffish means “disreputable-looking, showing a lack of regard for conventional behaviour, appearance, or style.” It is derived from the British colloquialism raff (odds and ends) and ultimately from the French slang phrase rif et raf (one and all, every single bit). A castaway like Robinson Crusoe, who wears whatever garments he can salvage, is raffish; so is a bohemian who wears nothing but thrifted or upcycled clothing. RAMPAGE (ON A)

Rampage was originally a verb, meaning “act or move in a ramping manner”; the fourteenthcentury Scottish term ramp means “storm, rage with violent gestures,” i.e., like a wild beast. To be on a rampage is to behave violently, destructively. Fun fact: The phrase “kill-crazy rampage” appears in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) as well as in his Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003).

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RANDONÉE

The 1920s-era outdoor-adventure term randonée, meaning “a long, fast-paced journey, especially on foot,” is now most often applied to back-country skiing. The term, borrowed from French, is the past participle of randonner (move swiftly across country, i.e., like a released animal). ps: Randonneuring (also known as Audax) is a long-distance cycling sport. See: hike, trek RANGER

Before the fourteenth-century term ranger came to mean “warden of a national or state park or forest,” it meant “forester, gamekeeper.” But J.R.R. Tolkien’s use of the term “rangers” to describe the rootless remnants of the Dúnedain of Arnor, led by Aragorn, evokes a now-obsolete sixteenth-century use of the term, meaning “rover, wanderer.” ps: The US Army Rangers, a highly decorated elite airborne light infantry combat formation, began as farranging scouts during wars between European colonists and Native American tribes.

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RECKLESS

The lost positive of the term reckless, meaning “heedless of or indifferent to the consequences of one’s actions,” is reck – a verb meaning “taking prudent notice of something, so as to modify one’s behaviour on account of it.” Fun fact: During the Korean War, a 5th Marine Regiment platoon purchased a pack horse named Reckless; after she made fifty-one solo trips in a single day to resupply front line units and was wounded in combat twice, she ended up a staff sergeant. See: baldheaded, ruthless RECONNOITER

The French term reconnoiter, which means “inspect or survey a district,” i.e., in order to discover the presence or position of an enemy or to find out its geography or resources, is derived from the Latin recognoscere (examine, inspect). Reconnaissance, which can take the form of patrolling by troops, ships, manned or unmanned aircraft, or satellites, is nicknamed recon by American soldiers and recce in the UK, Canada, and Australia. See: forage, scouting

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RESISTANCE

Since 1939, organized, covert opposition to an invading, occupying power has been known as resistance – from the Latin resistere (make a stand against, oppose). Notable resistance movements across German-occupied Europe during wwii included not only the French Resistance but the Polish Resistance, Soviet partisans, and others. In the final episode of the 1967–68 British sci-fi tv show The Prisoner, the titular prisoner Number Six (portrayed by Patrick McGoohan, who created the show) is lauded for having fought a “private war” against neo-Foucauldian forces of coercion: “He has revolted. Resisted. Fought. Held fast.” See: maquis RESOLVE

The term resolve is used to communicate not fearlessness but steadfast determination to achieve a goal in spite of opposition – and even in spite of one’s own fear. It is derived, via Old French, from the Latin resolvere (unravel, break up); as with the term resolute, which comes

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from the same root, the notion here is of breaking down a knotty topic … until one can make a decision. See: courage, intelligence RISK

Borrowed, via French, from the Vulgar Latin resicum (nautical hazard), which may itself be a borrowing from Arabic, to risk means “run into danger.” Figuratively, the term has come to mean “expose oneself to the possibility of loss, injury, or other adverse circumstance.” Fun fact: The strategy board game Risk, invented by Albert Lamorisse around the time he was directing The Red Balloon (1956), was inspired by the tabletop war games used by military strategists. ROAM

Roam, meaning “wander, travel aimlessly or unsystematically,” may be derived from an Old English term meaning “wander about.” (The folk etymology suggesting a connection to the city of Rome, hence pilgrimage, is unfounded.) A free roam videogame is one with nonlinear gameplay. Fun fact: The 1989 B-52’s hit “Roam” suggests that you can “Fly the great big sky / See

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the great big sea / Kick through continents / Busting boundaries,” simply by falling in love. See: rove, wander ROBINSONADE

A robinsonade is an adventure story relying on one or more of the tropes first popularized by Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. The protagonist of a robinsonade finds herself required to exercise shrewd practicality in rebuilding her life from scratch, using the materials she finds close at hand; in doing so, she discovers the rewards of meaningful work and self-sufficiency. Fun fact: In Rousseau’s 1762 educational treatise Emile, the only book that the young student Emile is allowed to read before the age of twelve is Robinson Crusoe. ROGER THAT

In wwii-era US Navy radio communication, the phrases roger, roger that, and that’s a roger were used to affirm that a message had been received. (In the nato phonetic alphabet, the letter R – for “received” – was represented by the word Roger.) One could use the phrase with varying inflection and tone to signify enthusiasm or disgruntlement. The radio term Wilco,

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meanwhile, indicated not only that a message had been received but also “will comply, will do.” See: 5 by 5, a-ok ROGUE

The fifteenth-century term rogue, which originally meant “idle vagrant” and later evolved to mean “dishonest person” (as in rogue’s gallery, i.e., a police collection of mug shots) or, more playfully, “one who is mischievous,” is one of the many ex-pejoratives in the glossary that are now used in an admiring, positive sense. During the 1960s, the term came to mean “something uncontrolled or undisciplined,” as in the phrase go rogue, i.e., “cease to follow orders, act on one’s own,” or rogue agent. Fun fact: In the Star Wars universe, the Rogue Squadron is composed of the Rebel Alliance’s best fighter pilots. ROLL DEEP

“When I roll twenty deep,” warns 50 Cent in the 2003 song “In Da Club,” “it’s twenty knives in the club.” To roll deep, in hip-hop lingo, is to “move and act together as a group,” i.e., in the company of one’s comrades. ps: To roll one deep is to act on your own. See: mob-handed

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RONIN

The fourteenth-century Japanese term ronin, which refers to a wandering samurai without a home or master – that is, one forced to make a living dishonourably, e.g., as a bodyguard, bandit, assassin, or mercenary soldier – literally means “wave-person.” Figuratively speaking, the ronin ceaselessly comes and goes like an ocean’s wave; that is to say, they have no fixed place of abode. Movies like Mizoguchi’s The 47 Ronin (1941), Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), and Kobayashi’s Harakiri (1962) popularized the ronin as a knight errant figure. See: knight errant, samurai ROVE

The origin of the fifteenth-century Scottish term rove, which means “wander without fixed route or destination,” is uncertain. It may be a misappropriation of the Old Norse term rave (be confused, dream); the earliest sense of the term was “shoot arrows at a mark selected at random,” i.e., like a person who is not purposeful but is instead confused or dreaming. It may also be a back-formation from rover, an earlier word meaning “sea-robber, pirate,” which de-

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rives from the Old English reaf (reave, plunder). ps: In the world of space exploration, a rover is a planetary surface exploration device; the first was the ussr’s Lunokhod 1. See: roam, wander ROWDY

A rowdy – the American colloquialism was a noun before it was an adjective – is a rough, quarrelsome person. The term likely comes from row, eighteenth-century Cambridge University slang meaning “noisy commotion” – which itself may be related to an even older student’s slang term, rousel (drinking bout). The word was repopularized in the 1980s by the kilt-wearing Canadian pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. RUCKUS

The nineteenth-century colloquialism ruckus is perhaps an Americanized version of the Irish slang ruction (disorderly dispute). Like many other slang terms used to describe noisy, violent quarrels – fracas, hurly-burly, kick-up, shivoo, shemozzle, shindy – it suggests that such affairs are just a bit of fun. To bring the ruckus, in hip-hop slang, is to start a brawl. See: banjax

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RUFFIAN

A ruffian is a brutal or lawless villain, a cutthroat; in a weakened sense, the term means “rough or disreputable person.” Originally, the term was specifically used to describe a swaggering bully or tough guy characterized by his extravagant dress and long hair. The term was borrowed in the late fifteenth century from French and Italian, where it was slang for “pimp, degenerate.” See: goon, thug RURITANIA

Anthony Hope’s swashbuckling 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda, the 1937 screen adaptation of which is one of the few perfect adventure movies, is set in Ruritania, a fictional eastern European country uncorrupted by modernity – i.e., where chivalric themes of honour, loyalty, and romantic love predominate. George Barr McCutcheon’s Graustark novels, the Tintin adventure King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios, and the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup are all good examples of Ruritanian romances.

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RUTHLESS

The lost positive of the fourteenth-century term ruthless, meaning “without pity or compassion, remorseless,” is ruth – an even older English term, probably borrowed from Old Norse, that means “the quality of being compassionate, the feeling of sorrow or pity for another.” See: reckless SAFARI

Safari is a Swahili term – itself derived from an Arabic word – meaning “journey.” In the nineteenth century, the term was appropriated to describe a party or caravan undertaking an extensive cross-country expedition on foot for hunting or scientific research, typically in an African country. Today, it is more generally used to describe a party travelling, usually in vehicles, into unspoiled or wild areas for tourism or game viewing. SALLY

In the sixteenth century, the French word saillie (a rushing forth), from the Latin salire (leap), was appropriated to describe a sudden rush out from a besieged place – i.e., in a surprise attack upon the besiegers. In general use today, a sally

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is a sudden start into activity, a breaking forth from restraint; it can refer to a flash of wit, for example, or a flight of fancy. Also: sortie. SAMURAI

In medieval Japan, a samurai was a highly respected, sword-toting member of the feudal military class. Although many adhered to the bushido code of honour and faithfully served a lord, others became – through necessity or choice – bandits or ninjas. (The term is a variant of saburai (to serve). In H.G. Wells’s 1905 sci-fi novel A Modern Utopia, the perfect future society is overseen by so-called samurai – ascetic, peripatetic administrators devoted to serving the greater good. See: bushido, ronin SAND

“There warn’t no back-down to her, I judge,” swoons Huckleberry Finn, in reference to the admirable Mary Jane Wilks, in Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand.” Sand, in this context, is a synonym for grit. See: grit

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SANDBAG

In nineteenth-century slang, to sandbag someone means, literally, to fell them with a blow from a bag of sand used as a cosh; figuratively, the verb means “coerce, put pressure on.” Among rock climbers, a sandbagged route is one that has been graded easier than it actually is; to sandbag a climber is to mislead them into attempting a too-difficult climb. In videogaming, similarly, to sandbag an opponent is to place oneself in an inferior position, in order to give the impression that one is less skilled than one actually is. SANG-FROID

In moments requiring careful analysis and precise action, an adventurer strives to remain cool, calm, and collected. The term sang-froid, or sangfroid, which means “poise under pressure,” is a French expression that literally means “cool blood.” To be cold-blooded isn’t necessarily a positive trait – a criminal or killer, for example, may be altogether too imperturbable. See: aplomb, cool SAUVE-QUI-PEUT

A number of older British idioms – one thinks, for example, of French leave – wishfully and

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spitefully depict France’s military forces as being particularly prone to cowardice and surrender. This particular French directive, which means “Save (himself) who can,” was adopted in the nineteenth century to describe a complete rout, an every-man-for-himself emergency. SAVVY

The eighteenth-century slang savvy was originally an offensive one. As a verb meaning “know, understand,” the term was a West Indies pidgin borrowing from the French savez(-vous) or Portuguese saber (know); to use it was to mock nonnative English speakers. Today, however, a person described as savvy is one who demonstrates practical sense, intelligence, shrewdness. See: canny, nous, wit SCHEISSENGRIPPEN

When encountering a crux (the toughest move or sequences of moves, on a climb) immediately after enjoying a jug (a good handhold), a climber may feel intense disappointment. The invented Germanic term scheissengrippen – i.e., shitty grip – is an expression of the latter sentiment.

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SCOT-FREE

To get away with doing something illicit scotfree is to do so without punishment or injury. Although the sixteenth-century phrase once meant “not required to pay scot (i.e., taxes, tariffs),” today’s usage is an alteration of shotfree – meaning, literally, “without getting oneself shot.” As Falstaff laments in Henry IV, pt. 1, when he finds himself transported from a London tavern to a great battle at Shrewsbury: “Though I could ’scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here.” SCOUTING

The fourteenth-century term scouting, meaning “spy out, watch in order to gain information – i.e., while camouflaging oneself, surviving in the wild, etc.,” is derived, via Old French, from the Latin auscultare (listen closely). In 1908, Robert Baden-Powell, hero of the Boer War’s Siege of Mafeking, revived the expression when he founded the Scouting movement – in order to develop character in Britain’s young men through a variety of open-air activities. See: reconnoiter

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SCUPPER

The military slang term scupper means “surprise and massacre.” The term doubtlessly derives from the fact that a sailor killed in action, on a rolling ship, would often wind up in a scupper – that is, a drain port in the ship’s side, level with the deck. The term is often confused with scuttle, which means “open a hole in a ship’s bottom, to sink it.” SEAT-OF -THE-PANTS

When flying through fog, early pilots often couldn’t tell whether their plane was right side up … except by checking the effect of gravity on their own posteriors. (No pressure on the seat of your pants? Then you must be upside down.) The 1930s-era slang term seat-of-thepants has since evolved into a colloquialism meaning “tending to act instinctively” and also “done on the basis of practical experience rather than technical knowledge.” SEE THE ELEPHANT

The nineteenth-century American expression I’ve seen the elephant means “I’ve seen enough; I don’t need or want to see anything else.” Its ultimate origin is obscure; it was a popular catchphrase during the era of the Texan Santa

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Fe Expedition, the American Civil War, the 1849 Gold Rush, and the Westward Expansion. More recently, the expression has come to mean “learn a hard lesson from experience, lose one’s innocence.” ps: In Australia, the saying is: I’ve seen the elephant and the kangaroo, too. SELF -CONFIDENCE

Self-confidence, the feeling of self-sufficiency that allows one to place faith in one’s own judgment, is an important attribute for an adventurer. The word confidence comes from the Latin confidentia, which means “assurance” … but which can also mean “audacity.” This suggests that a warning about an excess of self-assurance – “The fool rageth and is confident,” we read in Proverbs – may be baked into this word. ps: A confidence game is a swindle that takes advantage of the cognitive bias in which a person’s faith in their own judgment is misplaced. SEND

In 1990s-era rock-climbing argot, to send is to launch yourself off a cliff, in hopes of catching hold when you land again. More generally, the term has come to mean “go all in.” When mountain bikers, skiers, or other extreme sports

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aficionados direct you to send it, they’re encouraging you to commit yourself 100 per cent. See: dyno SERENDIPIT Y

In 1754 Horace Walpole, author of the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, coined the term serendipity – noting that the three princes of Serendip, in a Persian fairy tale set in Sri Lanka (called Sarandib, by Persians), were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” He was misremembering the tale, but no matter; ever since, the faculty of making happy discoveries by accident has been known as serendipity. SHENANIGAN

Shenanigan, meaning “trick, prank, plot,” may be derived from the Irish expression sionnachuighim (I play the fox), or it may be an invented word that (like several other in this glossary) was intended to sound Irish – because of that people’s association, among the English in the nineteenth century, with both underhanded schemes and exhibitions of high spirits.

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SHIBUI

Although the Japanese term shibui is most often used to describe craftsmanship that is beautifully understated, in recent years it has been used to characterize athletes who perform their acts effortlessly, in a simple and nonflashy way – or who contribute to the team’s win without making themselves stand out. The literal translation of shibui is “stimulatingly bitter”; by extension, the term means “something unexciting that excites.” SHIPSHAPE

Although this nautical term, which we use now to mean “arranged properly,” may seem to refer to the tidy storage of one’s gear, originally it referred to the correct rigging of a ship’s sails. In this sense, shipshape is a synonym for yar, a nautical term – last heard uttered by Katharine Hepburn’s character in The Philadelphia Story (1940), to describe a boat built for her by her ex-husband – that means “answering readily to the helm.” SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

This sixteenth-century phrase originally described military formations – that is, soldiers

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marching and fighting in close formation. Later, it came to mean, more generally, “with united effort.” The propaganda-ish song “Stouthearted Men,” popularized by a Nelson Eddy Broadway show in 1940, features these stirring lyrics, about volunteer soldiers: “Shoulder to shoulder and bolder and bolder / They grow as they go to the fore.” SHREWD

The contemporary meaning of shrewd – “clever or keen-witted in practical affairs; astute or sagacious in action or speech, level-headed” – is a positive one, but the sixteenth-century term was originally a pejorative meaning “dishonest, up to no good.” In the fourteenth century, shrewd meant “depraved, wicked, mischievous”; the term is derived from shrewe (wicked man). See: canny, crafty, cunning SHTARKER

The Yiddish word shtarker, which means “tough guy,” was originally a pejorative used most often to describe thugs or ruffians hired, e.g., to intimidate either labour or management during a strike. During and after wwii, however, when the Bielski brothers – Polish Jews

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who’d formerly worked as smugglers – organized and led the resistance to German occupiers around Nowogródek, shtarker began to take on a positive connotation. See: ruffian, thug SISU

This Finnish word refers to the ability to sustain courage over a long period. (The Finnish national character, one hears, is characterized by grim determination.) Matthew Henson, the African American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on the expedition that reached the North Pole in 1909, demonstrated sisu when he declared, at the outset of an earlier voyage, “It’ll work, if God, wind, leads, ice, snow, and all the hells of this damned frozen land are willing.” See: grit, survival SKIN OF ONE’S TEETH (BY THE)

In Job 19:20, the King James version of the Bible has the titular schlimazel lament, “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” This expression was popularized in the Old West, where it was used to describe situations from which one barely managed to escape with one’s hide intact.

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SKULDUGGERY

The nineteenth-century slang expression skulduggery, meaning “roguish dealing, the use of clever underhanded actions to achieve an end,” is borrowed from a Scottish term – of uncertain origin – used to denote cases of fornication or adultery judged by ecclesiastical courts. Terms with a similar meaning include chicanery, jiggery-pokery, and legerdemain. See: hanky-panky SKOOKUM

The term skookum, meaning “strong, brave, impressive,” is borrowed from Chinook Jargon – a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest, descended from the Chinook language which also bequeathed us the term potlatch. A skookum fellow is strong and reliable; that’s skookum means “good job, well done,” and skookumchuck means powerful rapids or stormy seas. SL AP LEATHER

To slap leather, in early twentieth-century slang, is to draw a gun from its holster; also: pull leather, clear leather, scratch leather. ps: Because shoes and boxing gloves are also made of leather, early twentieth-century slang is replete

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with phrases like throw leather (deliver punches) and give the leather (kick someone who’s down). SOJOURN

Sojourn, which means “a temporary stay at a place, reached by a journey,” is cognate with journey through their shared roots in the French jour (day). Fun fact: The African American abolitionist Sojourner Truth gave herself that name after she became convinced that God had called her to travel around the United States, preaching and singing. See: journey SPLITTER

An aesthetically pleasing crack in a rock face is known, among climbers, as a splitter. The term has come to be used, in a more general sense, by outdoor adventurers looking for a way to describe anything – from glorious weather to a tightly rolled joint – as beautiful and perfect. SQUAD

In military terminology, a squad – the term is derived from French – is a small number of men detailed for a special purpose, e.g., firing squad, suicide squad. In hip-hop argot, a squad

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is one’s group of close and trusted friends. Lil Wayne and other rappers helped popularize the expression, which was later appropriated by white female teenagers. The most famous squad, at the moment, consists of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib – all women of colour under the age of fifty who were elected in 2018 to the US House of Representatives. See: posse STALWART

The Scottish term stalwart, which means “resolute, valiant in a fight,” is derived from an Old English term used to describe robust, wellconstructed fortifications. It was popularized by Walter Scott’s 1810 poem “The Lady of the Lake” – which helped inspire the Highland Revival movement, and thus indirectly transformed Scottish national identity – in which a heavy sword is said to require a “stalwart arm” to wield it. See: staunch, valiant STAMINA

Although stamina is often thought of as something that can be increased or “built” via exercise, say, or meditation, originally the term

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described one’s congenital vital capacities. Derived from the notion of the stamen (the thread used by the Fates who, upon your birth, weave a tapestry the length of which represents how long you will live), one’s stamina was understood as, alas, a finite substance. STAUNCH

The Old French term estanche (firm, watertight), which is probably derived from the Latin stare (stand, make, or be firm), gives us staunch – which eventually became an adjective meaning “standing firm and true to one’s principles or purpose.” As a verb (now a variant of stanch), however, it has continued to mean “make watertight, stop a leak.” See: stalwart STEAZY

The hip-hop lingo steez has been around since at least 1990, when Run-D.M.C. coined it; it appears to be a portmanteau of style + ease. “I like your steez, your style, your whole demeanor,” raps Nelly in the 2002 song “Dilemma.” In the early 2000s, skiers and

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snowboarders appropriated steazy to describe pulling off tough moves with fluid grace. See: aplomb STICK ONE’S NECK OUT

Originally student slang, supposedly originating during the 1920s at the University of Virginia, to stick one’s neck out was to literally “expose oneself to risk or jeopardy” and figuratively, “expose oneself to criticism.” In earlier slang, to get it in the neck is to be thoroughly bested, as by overwhelming force or swindling, while neck or nothing means “all or nothing.” STOIC

Although since the sixteenth century the term stoic has been used to describe a person who represses all emotions and suffers pain or suffering in grim silence, Stoicism was an ancient school of philosophy founded by Zeno teaching love and compassion, and valuing good humour. (The stoa was the covered walkway where Zeno lectured.) Life is short, Stoics believe, so let’s overcome destructive emotions – but not joyful emotions – in order to get stuff done.

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STRAP IN

The slang expression strap in means “brace yourself, get ready,” i.e., for something shocking. Although the term suggests a race car driver or stunt pilot, say, buckling themselves into their safety harness, there is also an antiquated sense in which strap means “buckle down, work tirelessly.” ps: In Old West slang, to be strapped is to have a holstered firearm tied to one’s leg. See: buckle down, fine fettle (in) STREET WISE

To be streetwise is to possess not only the skills and knowledge but also the instinct and personality necessary to survive and thrive in a dangerous urban environment. A streetwise person is not necessarily brave and tough but smart enough to know when bravery and toughness will not suffice. Being street-smart, by contrast, means “having practical rather than theoretical knowledge,” i.e., such as what is learned on the streets rather than in the classroom. See: astute

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STRENGTH

Strength, which is to say power or resilience, capacity for effective action or resistance, can be both a physical and mental quality. The word’s derivation, via Old English, from a protoGermanic word meaning “tight, hard,” suggests firmness, fortitude. In Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s strength modifier affects his or her ability to prevail in combat, climb and jump, break down doors, and the like. See: fortitude STUNT

A stunt is an act which is remarkable for the skill, strength, or the like, required to do it. Coined in the nineteenth century by American college athletes, the neologism was most often used to describe a feat undertaken as a defiance – that is, in response to a challenge or taunt. See: defiance STURMFREI

The German word sturmfrei describes the freedom of being alone; it was adopted from military argot describing a stronghold that can’t be stormed. The solitary Japanese adventurer Naomi Uemura – the first man to reach the

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North Pole solo, the first man to raft the Amazon solo, and the first man to climb Denali solo – helped us understand this sort of thing when he told an interviewer that “one thing I loathe is to have to test myself in front of other people.” SURVIVAL

The term survival, which derives, via Old French, from the Latin supervivere (live beyond), implies outliving someone, continuing in existence after their death. In an adventure context, however, survival takes the sense of “continuing to live, and thrive, in a situation that would have killed or defeated others.” Survival stories and movies, whether fictional or documentary, encourage us to imagine what it would take to endure in the face of nature’s deadly force. See: sisu SWAG

Although today swag means “free junk,” e.g., a tote bag full of branded products provided to conference attendees, for many years the term described a nomadic person’s bag of possessions, a thief ’s plunder, or a pirate’s booty. It is possibly derived from an

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Old Norse word meaning “move heavily or unsteadily,” which by extension came to mean “bulging bag.” SWASHBUCKLE

To swash, in sixteenth-century echoic slang, is to swagger noisily, move about violently, or fight (as with swords) with a loud clashing. A buckler, meanwhile, is a small shield used in sword fighting; to take up the buckler was to present oneself as a champion. A swashbuckler, in sixteenth-century slang, is a disreputable but not entirely villainous bravo. Swashbuckling adventures – written by, e.g., Alexandre Dumas and Robert Louis Stevenson – tend to be set in Europe from the Renaissance through the colonial era. See: buckle down TAILSPIN

The 1920s-era slang term tailspin, the figurative meaning of which is “a rapid and severe decline or downturn, an increasing loss of control” is borrowed from aeronautics, where it describes an aircraft’s steep, uncontrolled, spinning descent. Fun fact: A vrille is a nose-first spinning descent engaged in deliberately; the term is derived from an Old French word meaning “tendril.”

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TAKE POINT

In wwii-era military argot, to take point (or be point man) is to assume the first and therefore most exposed position in a combat unit advancing through hostile or unsecured territory. The term was originally used among cowboys who’d been in the cavalry during the Civil War. ps: The slackman is the soldier advancing directly behind the point. TAKEN ABACK

The idiom taken aback, which figuratively means “surprised or startled by a sudden turn of events,” is originally a nautical one. The sails of a ship are said to be aback when the wind turns suddenly, i.e., blowing them flat against the masts and spars that support them; a ship that suddenly finds itself facing into the wind, therefore, was said to have been taken aback. TENACIOUS

The tenacious person isn’t merely resolute but stubbornly persistent – a bulldog with jaws locked shut, if you will, unwilling to acknowledge defeat. We use the term in a figurative sense, to mean “demonstrating firm-

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ness of purpose” but literally, in Latin, tenacitas means “an act of holding fast.” ps: Tenacious D means “tenacious defence,” a phrase popularized by nba basketball play-by-play announcer Marv Albert, before being adopted as a band name by Jack Black. See: sisu, tough THROUGH THICK AND THIN

In “The Reeve’s Tale,” one of the stories in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (c. 1400), when John and Aleyn pursue their runaway horse through thikke and thenne, the expression means “thicket and thin wood.” Used in a figurative sense, the phrase through thick and thin has come to mean “in spite of obstacles, under any circumstances” and also “through good times and bad.” THROW A SET

During the 1980s, gang signs (complex shapes made with one’s fingers) were, along with graffiti, clothing, and tattoos, a secret visual language of the streets. To brandish one’s gang sign, or throw a set, could serve a number of purposes – such as disrespecting rivals. As Wiz Khalifa demands in the 2011 song “Taylor

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Gang,” “Throw your set up / What you rep when you twistin’ ya fingers?” See: throw down one’s gauntlet THROW DOWN ONE’S GAUNTLET

When one knight challenged another to a duel or contest, he might throw down his gauntlet – i.e., a glove of hardened leather or metal plates. The practice was associated particularly with the action of the King’s Champion, at a coronation. Fun fact: Run the gauntlet, which references a now-obsolete military punishment and means “be exposed to danger,” has nothing to do with a gauntlet; the military slang expression evolved from the Swedish word gatlopp (street run). THUG

A thug, in nineteenth-century British slang, is a dangerous street tough. The term originally was used to describe groups of Muslim highwaymen, in India, who would supposedly join travelling groups, then strangle and rob their victims. The earliest known reference to India’s Thugs as a band or fraternity, rather than ordinary thieves, dates to c. 1356. The term thug it-

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self is derived from a Marathi (Western India) word meaning “cheat, swindler.” See: goon, ruffian THWART

Thwart was first an adverb, meaning “obliquely, crosswise,” especially across at a slant. It’s derived from an Old Norse word meaning “transverse.” (The nautical term athwart means “at right angles to the fore-and-aft line, or keel.”) Figuratively speaking, to thwart one’s foe is not to overpower them but rather to block, baffle, or stymie them – i.e., to defeat them obliquely. TOUCH AND GO

Figuratively, touch and go means “a precarious or risky situation.” Originally nautical argot, the idiom once described the act of briefly striking rocks or the seabed, with your ship’s keel, without stopping or losing speed. ps: An eighteenth-century proverb, “Touch and go is a good pilot,” suggests that as long as one is ultimately successful in one’s endeavour, it doesn’t matter how close one has come to failure or disaster. Words to live by.

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TOUGH

Tough originally meant “tenacious,” i.e., something whose grip was unshakeable; it’s an Old English term derived from Old German. Not until the mid-nineteenth century did it come to mean “ruffian.” In the late nineteenth century, a person difficult or dangerous to deal with was called a tough nut (i.e., to crack); the colloquialisms tough guy and tough baby, familiar to readers of hardboiled fiction from the era, emerged in the 1930s. See: tenacious TRAIL MAGIC

To hikers along the Appalachian Trail, unexpected acts of kindness (someone offering a ride into town, say, or handing you an energy bar just as your spirits are flagging) are known as trail magic. More generally, this hiker’s idiom describes something uplifting and inspiring happening (an amazing view after days of clouds and rain, for example) exactly when it is most needed. TREASURE HUNT

According to popular conception, pirates, bank robbers, and Old West bandits buried their illgotten gains in remote locales with the inten-

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tion of recovering them later. Stories from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to Hergé’s The Secret of the Unicorn are fun because treasure hunt narratives are both brainteasers and fastpaced thrillers. Deciphering maps, cracking codes, racing other treasure hunters … what’s not to like? See: pirate TREK

The Afrikaans word trek was popularized in connection with the Boers (that is, the Dutch and Huguenot population that settled in southern Africa in the late seventeenth century), who frequently moved their families and grazing stock from place to place via ox-wagons. Derived from an Old Dutch word meaning “drag, haul,” trek these days is used to describe any long, slow, difficult journey – especially one involving considerable physical effort. See: hike TRUE COLOURS

It was common practice, once, for ships of war to carry not only the colours (flag, that is) of their own nation but colours from other nations, as well – for use, as necessary, in confus-

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ing or misleading their enemies at sea. (This stratagem is employed more than once in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin nautical adventures.) Figuratively, then, to display one’s true colours is to reveal one’s authentic character or beliefs … which may not be what one had pretended. See: walk the walk TURN A BLIND EYE

When Admiral Horatio Nelson, who’d lost the sight in one eye early in his Royal Navy career, was ordered – during the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen – to discontinue his assault, he lifted a telescope to his blind eye, saying, “I have a right to be blind sometimes.” It’s amusing to imagine that this incident gave us the idiom turn a blind eye – that is, ignore undesirable information. UNDER THE RADAR

The use of radio detection and ranging (which gives us the acronym radar), i.e., for determining the direction, distance, and motion of airborne phenomena, dates to the 1930s. Figurative phrases such as under the radar, below the radar, off the radar, etc. – in which the de-

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tection of something, or the relative amount of attention given to it, is indicated by whether it registers on an imaginary radar – are of more recent vintage. UNDERTAKING

There is an entrepreneurial, damn-the-torpedoes sense to the term undertaking, which is used to describe an endeavour that promises to be difficult, risky, and unpleasant … though worth it. There is also a knightly, adventurous sense to the term, which means “a duty or task taken upon oneself.” ps: In Chaucer’s fourteenth-century epic Troilus and Criseyde, we are advised that “He which that no thyng undertaketh / No thyng ne acheveth”: the original “no pain, no gain.” See: endeavour, enterprise UNFL APPABLE

The British colloquialism unflappable, meaning “imperturbable, not subject to nervous excitement,” takes its meaning from flap, which is military argot meaning “state of alert, agitation.” One pictures a ship’s sails flapping, as its course suddenly changes in response to an emergency and therefore imagines that these expressions date to the eighteenth century or

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earlier … but this is not the case. Flap (in the sense of “disturbance”) dates to wwi, and unflappable was coined in the 1950s. Fun fact: The word flap, which originally meant “blow, slap,” is onomatopoetic in origin; it imitates the sound of striking. UPSHOT

The result, issue, or conclusion of some form of action is often described, breezily, as its upshot. Although this might seem to be an example of contemporary slang, in fact an upshot is literally the final shot in an archery match; the figurative sense dates back to the seventeenth century. VALIANT

To be valiant is to be stouthearted, i.e., not merely bold but courageous. Like stalwart, the term originally meant “sturdy, well-constructed”; it is derived from the Latin valere, which means both “be strong” and “be of worth.” It’s an antiquated term, these days, though it’s been kept in the popular consciousness by the comic strip Prince Valiant, created by Hal Foster in 1937 and still appearing weekly

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(a staggering 4,000 Sunday strips after its first instalment) in newspapers. See: stalwart, valour VALOUR

Valour, which like valiant derives from the Latin valere (be strong, be of worth), describes the quality of mind and spirit which enables a person to face danger valiantly. A medal of valour is one awarded for a courageous deed. Fun fact: In 1955, ec Comics published a comic book, Valor, dedicated to tales of action and adventure from the Roman Empire to the Napoleonic era. See: valiant VAMOOSE

An alteration of the Spanish ¡vamos! (“let’s go!”), the nineteenth-century Americanism vamoose means “make off, depart, decamp.” Fun fact: In 1890, William Randolph Hearst – who’d just taken over his first newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner – commissioned a powerful, aerodynamic racing yacht, which he named the Vamoose. See: absquatulate, light out

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VANGUARD

The foremost division of an army is its vanguard, charged with seeking out the enemy. This Scottish term is derived from the Old French avant (before) + garde (body of soldiers). Figuratively, to be in the vanguard is to be at the forefront of a social or cultural movement. VENDETTA

A vendetta is blood feud, usually of a hereditary character – as was once customary among the inhabitants of Corsica and parts of Italy. It is derived from the Latin vindicta (vengeance). Fun fact: The 1982 graphic novel V for Vendetta, written by Alan Moore, features a masked anarchist who seeks revenge against the government officials who’ve tortured him. See: avenger VENGEANCE

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath,” we read in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, “for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” (Turn the other cheek, God here tells Christians, and trust me to handle revenge and justice for those who harm you.) Vengeance is

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the act of inflicting injury on someone, not out of mere malicious retaliation but as an act of retributive punishment. The term derives, via Old French from the Latin vindicare (punish). ps: To do something with a vengeance is to do it with full force. See: avenger VENTURE

The term venture, which means “an act of trying one’s chance or fortune,” a course in which there is a risk of loss as well as chance of gain, is what etymologists call an “aphetic” one – i.e., a word that has gradually and unintentionally lost an initial vowel. In the same fashion that esquire became squire and avauntgarde became vanguard, the French term aventure (adventure) became simply venture. ps: A venturesome person is one ready or disposed to take risks. See: adventure VIGIL ANT

The Anglo-Norman term vigil comes from the Latin vigilia (watch, wakefulness); to keep vigil, in medieval times, meant “staying awake late on the eve of a holy day” – as a devotional exercise. In secular usage, a vigil is

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the act of keeping awake at times when sleep is customary; to be vigilant is to be watchful against danger. ps: Hypervigilance is an exaggerated fear of danger seen with posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) and other anxiety and mood disorders. See: alert, lookout VIGIL ANTE

A civilian who acts in a law-enforcement capacity, without authority – typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate – is known as a vigilante. The Spanish word, meaning “watchman,” entered English when it was used to describe members of Old West “vigilance committees” organized to suppress and punish crime summarily. Characteristics of vigilantism have often been vested in folkloric and fictional antiheroes … but in real life, most vigilantes are like the Proud Boys: which is to say, racist, protofascist creeps. See: avenger VIGOUR

Vigour, meaning “activity or energy of body or constitution,” was originally used to describe active physical strength as an attribute or quality of living persons or animals. The term is

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taken directly from the Latin vigor (liveliness, activity, force). ps: The etymology of vim, a slangy way of saying “force, energy,” almost always in the phrase vim and vigour, is uncertain; it may derive from the Latin vis (strength, energy). VIRTUOSO

In sixteenth-century Italy, virtu came to mean “appreciation of, or expertise in, the fine arts”; the term is derived from the Late Latin virtuosus – which means “skilled, learned.” (The word virtuous originally meant “having qualities befitting a knight,” i.e., not merely courage and morality but “manly” physical skills and knowhow.) Outside of the arts, a virtuoso is a person who demonstrates special skill, knowledge, or accomplishment in their sphere. See: dab hand VOYAGE

Whereas a journey is a trek over land, a voyage to a distant point involves travelling over water, or – relatively recently – through air or space. The medieval term is derived, via AngloNorman, from the Latin viaticum (supply of provisions, i.e., for a long seagoing expedition). ps: The fantastic voyage is the most important

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prose form in the ancestry of science fiction; Jules Verne’s scientific adventure novels, for example, are known as the Voyages extraordinaires. See: journey VOYAGEUR

The French Canadian term voyageur means “water traveller,” i.e., specifically a canoeman. Originally, the term referred to workers employed by fur companies in carrying goods to and from remote trading posts on dangerous Canadian lakes and rivers. The voyageurs have since become legendary figures; their deeds are celebrated in folklore and music. WALK THE WALK

Backing up one’s rhetoric with action – that is, behaving in a manner consistent with the values one advocates – is called walking the walk. (The colloquialism is frequently contrasted with the pejorative phrase talk the talk.) Fun fact: John Francis, who in the 1970s embarked on solo hikes across the continental United States in order to raise awareness about our overreliance on petroleum products, is an

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example of an adventurer who literally walked the walk. See: true colours WANDER

To wander is to go one’s way without a predetermined route, to move restlessly from place to place. Borrowed from German, the original word seems to mean not only “hike” but also “change,” which is exactly right. A wanderjahr is a year spent in travel but also evolution; originally the idea was for a young apprentice to spend that time productively, perfecting their skills. The German word wanderlust, meanwhile, expresses a romantic urge for new vistas. See: roam, rove WAYFINDING

Historically, wayfinding refers to the techniques – e.g., dead reckoning, map and compass, astronomical positioning, gps – used by travellers, whether over land or sea, or flying through the air, to find relatively unmarked or mislabelled routes. A wayfinder is a person skilled in finding a route; in extended use, she is a person who blazes trails.

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WFO

In biker slang, another way of saying “full throttle” is Wide Fucking Open – or wfo. The 1994 thrash-metal song “Fast Junkie,” by Overkill, explains the mindset like so: “No time for thinking, a full-out fast junkie. / Pushin’ the red, hey! Full out speed monkey / I am … wide fucking open.” See: do the ton WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was coined by Internet geeks aping military slang like Oscar Mike and Able Sugar. It means “What the fuck?” Amusingly, it has since been adopted by soldiers. The coinage serves as a title for war photographer Ashley Gilbertson’s 2007 memoir of the Iraq War. See: able sugar, oscar mike WILSON

In skateboarding and roller derby, if your feet fly out from under you, it’s known as a wilson or Mr Wilson – after the grumpy neighbour of Dennis the Menace (in the newspaper cartoon of that title), who’d often fall in that particular way. Fun fact: In the mmo gaming community,

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a Wilson is someone who runs away at the first sign of trouble; this refers to the disappearance of Tom Hanks’s “friend” Wilson, in Castaway. WILY

A wile is a devious or cunning stratagem, a ruse. The term may derive from a Scandinavian word meaning “trick, craft”; if so, it is related to the word wizard. To be wily is to be subtle in one’s effort to achieve a near-impossible goal. One cannot help but root for Wile E. Coyote, the antagonist to Road Runner in a longrunning (1940s–60s) series of cartoon shorts, to succeed. See: crafty, cunning WIND (IN THE)

A fugitive or escaped person is sometimes said to be in the wind. The phrase likely derives from the sixteenth-century expression have in the wind, which is to say, of hunting dogs, “be on the scent or trail of, be in search of.” Reminder to fugitives: Always stay downwind of the dogs!

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WINGMAN

In wwii-era military jargon, the pilot of an aircraft which is positioned behind and to one side of the leading aircraft, in combat formation, is the wingman. Among the general population, the term has come to mean “friend who has your back,” not to mention “dating buddy.” WISDOM

The term wisdom, borrowed from Old Norse, describes soundness of judgment in one’s choice not only of means but ends; it’s the sine qua non when it comes to making smart and ethical decisions. In the game Dungeons & Dragons, a character’s wisdom modifier affects her perception and intuition; it is particularly important for perceptive, intuitive clerics and druids. See: intelligence WIT

Wit is more than mere cleverness or ingenuity. The term, which comes from a proto-Germanic word meaning “understanding,” describes one’s capacity for puncturing the commonsense mythologies of one’s culture, making surprising

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connections between disparate phenomena … and regarding the resulting big picture (that one has in this fashion discovered) ironically. See: astute, intelligence WOOP WOOP

Woop Woop was the name of a 1920s-era sawmill located near Wilga, a small town in the southwest region of Western Australia. In Australian slang, woop woop now means “the middle of nowhere.” Similar terms: beyond the black stump (Australia), the boondocks (Southern US), out in the sticks, and the back of beyond (UK). WORRY

Worry is derived from an Old High German word meaning “strangle”; it came to mean “seize by the throat with the teeth,” said for example of wolves attacking their prey. By the nineteenth century, the term was used in a figurative sense – to describe the (wolf-like) attack of mental disquietude. In order to avoid paralysis of will, an adventurer must fend off such attacks. As Amelia Earhart put it, “Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.”

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WRANGLE

Wrangle, which in the Old West meant “take charge of horses,” is derived from a German word meaning “struggle, wrestle.” (The term wrangler – one who is in charge of a string of horses – was appropriated as a brand name for blue jeans in the 1940s and for a Jeep model in the 1980s.) The original sense of the term survives in the use of wrangle to mean “dispute, argue.” WU WEI

The ideal of “action without action” or “effortless doing” is captured in the Chinese philosophical concept of wu wei (literally, “inexertion”), which denotes a state of perfect efficaciousness made possible by complete knowledge of the reality of the situation. When in such a rarefied state, one acts in a manner that is spontaneous yet not unconsidered. See: flow X

Ever since Descartes employed the alphabet’s antepenultimate letter to represent an unknown value in mathematics, X has been used to represent the unknown in all sorts of circumstances. (During the 1920s–40s, for ex-

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ample, the letter appeared in the title of innumerable crime and mystery novels; during the 1950s–60s, it spread to science fiction and espionage titles.) ps: In using the Latin character X in this fashion, Descartes was following the medieval Spanish practice of using the Greek character X (chi) to mean the same thing; Spanish mathematicians had adopted this character to refer to the Arabic mathematical term for “unknown.” X FACTOR

Before it was the title of a popular tv music competition franchise, the 1930s-era idiom X factor meant not only “noteworthy special talent or quality” but also, in a quasi-mathematical sense, “an indefinable but important variable in a developing situation.” YARD SALE

When a kayak, canoe, or raft overturns, one’s gear tends to float downstream and collect in an eddy – that is to say, a point in the river, often behind an obstruction or inside a sharp turn, where the water reverses. The resulting mess is jokingly known as a yard sale.

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YIPPEE KI-YAY

Yippee is an American exclamation of delight dating back to the 1920s; the imitative term yip – that is, “emit a high-pitched bark” – is older. The phrase yippee-ki-yay is an abbreviated version of a refrain from a 1930s Bing Crosby cowboy song; there is no evidence that any actual cowboys ever said it. Fun fact: The expression was popularized by the first Die Hard movie, in which Bruce Willis’s character threatens a terrorist by saying, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” YOLO

In the early part of the twenty-first century, the acronym yolo (You Only Live Once) was so over-used in youth culture – in graffiti, tattoos, merchandise, Drake’s lyrics, and Twitter hashtags – that it became insipid. Also dangerous! Just prior to his death in a fiery crash, one young man tweeted: “Drunk af [as fuck] going 120 drifting corners #FuckIt yolo.” ZEALOUS

To be zealous is to be passionately enthusiastic or fervent for a cause, belief, or objective. Originally used only in religious contexts, the term derives from the Greek word (ζῆλος) for “jealousy, eager rivalry, pride.” Its use in sixteenth-

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and seventeenth-century Puritan discourse, where it described a devotion that will tolerate no unfaithfulness or disobedience, led to the current sense in which the term is often used to mean “excessive fervour or fanaticism.” ZERO HOUR

In wwi-era military jargon, zero hour refers to the time at which a military operation – an attack, for example – is set to begin. In extended use, zero hour means “the time at which any significant event is scheduled to take place” or else “a time beyond which it will be too late to make a decisive change of plan.” Synonyms include the moment of truth, the vital moment. ZERO IN

Literally, to zero in is to set the sights of a rifle by testing it with targets at known distances. In extended military use, zero in means “select a person or place as the object of attack”; in figurative civilian use, the idiom evolved to mean “focus one’s attention.” ZOOM

Zoom, which gained popularity during wwi when aviators used it to mean “travel very quickly [while one’s engine makes a droning

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sound],” is a term of echoic origin; originally, it meant “make a continuous low-pitched buzzing or humming sound.” In contemporary usage, it means “move or travel very quickly” – whether in a car or aircraft, or on foot. selected bibliography Green’s Dictionary of Slang Online. Digital Edition. Jonathan Green, ed. Abecedary Limited, 2021. Continually updated at https://greensdictofslang.com/. Online Etymological Dictionary. Douglas Harper, ed. Lancaster, pa. 2021. Continually updated at https:// www.etymonline.com/. The Original Hip Hop Lyrics Archive. Steve Juon, ed. Omaha, Nebraska. Continually updated at ohhla.com. The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. 1st ed. Christine A. Lindberg, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 20 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Also available at http://www.oed.com/. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Jonathan E. Lighter, ed. New York: Random House Press, 1994. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. Noah Porter, ed. Springfield, ma: C. & G. Merriam Co., 1913. Also available at https://www.websters1913.com/.

A Typology of Adventure joshua g lenn

Every adventure story is escapist. Thematically speaking, the question is … from what, exactly, are we trying to escape? This typology organizes adventure stories into eight paradigms, each of which is defined by two thematic complexes representing contrasting yet complementary modes of escapism. Within each complex, subgenres of adventure literature are named – and each of these is illustrated via reference to iconic adventure novels, tv shows, and movies. There are other subgenres and examples worth mentioning! But we have to begin somewhere.

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ROBINSONADE: Stories of starting over, meaningful work, and shrewd practicality

• Escape from … wage slavery. Freedom from selling one’s time and skills, and from management. The Cozy Catastrophe subgenre finds the protagonist forced to live a more primitive way of life, which they end up finding enjoyable. → Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids. The Lord of the Flies is a sardonic inversion of this subgenre. The Romance of Capitalism subgenre allows the protagonist to become owner of the value created by his or her work. → Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice, Ayn Rand’s oeuvre. • Escape from … complacency. Freedom from amenity, efficiency, comfort, ease. The diy subgenre requires the protagonist to experiment, iterate, and invent. → Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, not to mention Robert Heinlein’s 1950s-era “juveniles” and Andy Weir’s The Martian. The Space Colony subgenre? It’s a Robinsonade in space. → The Martian Chronicles. INTO THE WILD: Stories in which a fed-up individual lights out for parts unknown

• Escape from … duty to society. Freedom from social relations based on impersonal

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ties. The Runaway subgenre offers adolescent wish fulfillments. → Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, perhaps Ransome’s Swallows & Amazons series belongs here. The Artful Dodger subgenre finds our protagonist hunted and unsure who to trust. → Dickens’s Oliver Twist, John Buchan’s oeuvre, Geoffrey Household’s oeuvre, the movie Three Days of the Condor. The Psychological Thriller gives us characters who are sociopathic, or psychopathic. → Jim Thompson’s oeuvre, Patricia Highsmith’s oeuvre, the Hannibal Lecter franchise, American Psycho. • Escape from … habitus. Discovering which sociocultural forms and norms truly matter. The Frontier/Border subgenre suggests that travel – to the West, the Northwest Territories, Scotland, China, etc. – will provide answers. → Walter Scott’s Waverley, Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, Jack London’s oeuvre, Wren’s Beau Geste, Milton Caniff ’s newspaper comics, Jeremiah Johnson. Revisionist Westerns are a sardonic inversion of this sort of thing → The Magnificent Seven, Portis’s True Grit, Cormac McCarthy’ oeuvre. The Fantastic Voyage opens the protagonist’s eyes to the shortcomings of her own culture/era. → Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel,

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Gulliver’s Travels, Wells’s The Time Machine, Arthur C. Clarke’s oeuvre, Adam’s Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline. GOING APE: Stories celebrating atavistic, savage powers, experiences, and perceptions

• Escape from … civilization. Discovering what savage forces lurk within us. The Atavistic subgenre endorses the force, splendour, and savagery of humankind’s distant past. → Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan stories. The Post-Apocalyptic subgenre sees civilization failing and people getting medieval. → J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise, Crowley’s Engine Summer, Gary Panter’s Jimbo comics, Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Octavia E. Butler’s oeuvre, Matthew Sharpe’s Jamestown. • Escape from … occlusion. Discovering what life is all about, when you strip away the inessentials (and the falsehoods). The Survival subgenre suggests that struggling against nature reveals things as they essentially are. → Hammond Innes’s oeuvre, Alistair MacLean’s oeuvre, perhaps Hemingway belongs here too. The Seagoing subgenre carries our protagonist far from the uncertain-

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ties of life on shore. → The Hornblower series, the Master and Commander series. The Vision Quest subgenre sends the protagonist on a quest for insights and meaningfulness. → James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, William Gibson’s oeuvre, The Watchmen graphic novel and tv series. THE AVENGERS: Stories of self-overcoming, the triumph of will vs internalized destiny

• Escape from … persona. Discovering who you are, beneath your public façade. The Secret Identity subgenre allows the protagonist to move fluidly through society’s strata. → Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sabatini’s oeuvre, most superhero comics. • Escape from … self-limits. Liberty to write your own story, reinvent yourself. The Self-Liberation subgenre urges the protagonist to revalue all values and decide for herself who and what she will be. → Gide’s The Vatican Catacombs, Olaf Stapledon’s oeuvre, the Batman franchise, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. The Unwitting Weapon subgenre posits a protagonist who doesn’t realize what he or she is capable of. → the Jason Bourne franchise, the latest Wonder Woman iteration.

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ESCAPADE: Stories of challenges accepted, capers pulled off, surly bonds slipped

• Escape from … regulation. Liberty to act freely, fail better, learn from your mistakes. The Dystopian subgenre dramatizes the downside of harmonious social totality. → Zamyatin’s We, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley’s Brave New World, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The Reluctant Badass subgenre’s protagonist is a former warrior or killer forced out of retirement. → Francis Clifford’s The Naked Runner, the Billy Jack movies, Sylvester Stallone’s oeuvre. The Prison Break subgenre literalizes adventure’s escapism. → The Great Escape, Cool Hand Luke, Escape from Alcatraz, The Shawshank Redemption. • Escape from … vexation. Liberty to exercise skill, know-how, technique, virtuosity. The Crackerjack subgenre celebrates consummate professionalism, in a world filled with amateurs. → Allain and Souvestre’s Fantomas stories, Howard Hawks’s film oeuvre, the tv show Mission Impossible, Westlake’s Parker stories, Ocean’s Eleven. The Detective subgenre valorizes deductive reasoning and dogged persistence. → Collins’s The Moonstone, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Say-

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ers’s Wimsey stories, Hammett’s and Chandler’s oeuvres, Tey’s The Daughter of Time, Ross Macdonald’s oeuvre. TEAM BUILDING: Stories in which an unlikely team coalesces for a mission impossible

• Escape from … ostracism. Liberty to flourish within a purpose-built collective. The Argonaut Folly subgenre requires a quarrelsome gathering of talented oddballs to pull together as one. → Monsarrat’s The Cruel Sea, the X-Men franchise, the Star Wars franchise. The Beautiful Losers subgenre asks us to sympathize with flawed teammates. → The Dirty Dozen, The Warriors, S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, the tv show Firefly. • Escape from … schism. Affirming an ideal that can unite balkanized social and cultural factions. The All for One subgenre suggests that a like-minded affinity group can overcome prejudice. → Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, the show Star Trek. GLORY ROAD: Stories of quests in pursuit of romantic goals, treasures, and ways of life

• Escape from … alienation. Affirming social relations based on shared values. The

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Ruritanian subgenre offers the protagonist a chance experience an old-fashioned social order. → Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda, the Tintin story King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions. The Communitas subgenre allows the protagonist to find a tight-knit community worth being part of. → Jansson’s Moomin stories, Herbert’s Dune, Adams’s Watership Down, Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. • Escape from … disenchantment. Affirming the world’s magic, mystery, and richness. The Portal to Fantasy subgenre whisks the protagonist from our world into a magical one. → Alice in Wonderland, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, Cooper’s Dark Is Rising series, Crowley’s Little, Big, the Harry Potter franchise, Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky. The Treasure Hunt subgenre challenges the protagonist to solve riddles, crack codes. → Poe’s “The Gold-Bug,” Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Hergé’s Tintin comics, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Byatt’s Possession, the Indiana Jones franchise, Hellboy comics. The Cosmic Horror subgenre suggests that we might not want to know what’s really out there. → Weird Tales, Lovecraft’s oeuvre, China Miéville’s New Weird oeuvre.

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GOING ROGUE: Stories in which one wrestles with the social power that disciplines us

• Escape from … network. Affirming the value of a liberal democracy unimperiled by malign forces. The Paranoid Thriller subgenre reveals that evil is masked by authority and respectability. → Buchan’s oeuvre, Hammett’s and Chandler’s oeuvres (again), Hitchcock’s film oeuvre, Matthew De Abaitua’s oeuvre. The Espionage subgenre tasks its protagonist with ferreting out and frustrating foreign plots. → Helen MacInnes’s oeuvre, Allingham’s oeuvre, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and other movies. Michael Innes’s oeuvre offers a sardonic inversion of the subgenre; so does John Le Carré’s. • Escape from … narrative. Freedom from meaning imposed by an external authority. The Picaresque subgenre allows its protagonist to wander freely. → The Odyssey, Don Quixote, Cabell’s Jurgen, Pratt’s Corto Maltese comics. Identity Amnesia adventures free their protagonists from their own pasts → Allingham’s Traitor’s Purse, RoboCop, the Jason Bourne franchise (again), Hancock. The Apophenic Thriller subgenre forces the protagonist to grapple with whether anything can be known, at all. → Kafka, O’Brien’s

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The Third Policeman, Philip K. Dick’s oeuvre, Shirley Jackson’s oeuvre, Pynchon’s oeuvre, The Prisoner, Moebius’s comics, Christopher Nolan’s film oeuvre. A quick note on the Adventure Typology diagram. This is a semiotic schema of my own design, one which allows us to map how meaning works within any “semiosphere.” In the case of adventure narratives, what the schema reveals is four codes – each of which assumes the form of a binary opposition, i.e., a value and its disvalue – which we’ll call Into the Wild vs Team Building, Robinsonade vs Escapade, Going Ape vs Glory Road, and The Avengers vs Going Rogue. What this exercise also reveals are two deep underlying cultural contradictions, in this case between freedom and liberty, as well as between what the literary critic Lionel Trilling called authenticity and sincerity. These four quadrants of our meaning map limn the possibilities of all adventure stories.

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Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and coauthor of several books, including Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun and Significant Objects. Mark Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine. His most recent books are On Risk and The Ethics of Architecture. Seth is a cartoonist and designer. His most recent book, Clyde Fans, is the first graphic novel to be nominated for a Giller Prize.

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