Who knows the origin of the term "beta"

[Jimr]

Welcome back longri, we missed you.

[Tom_H]

I'm still trying to figure out why my generation thought "Hot" and "Cool" meant the same thing.

Well..........sometimes when I'm around my wife I start to feel this heat rising between my collar and neck And sometimes her presence is like a long cool drink of lemonade on a muggy day!

[Jimr]

That's hot.....I mean, that's cool!

[nunatak]

Like maritime traditions, climbing has it's own set of words, phrases and meanings.

Some common examples:

Beta - the low down on a given climb
Crux - hardest passage on a given climb
Send - smooth, stylish ascent.
On sight - no falls ascent given no beta. Purest form of climbing
Red point - no falls ascent with beta.
Pink point, head point - further degradation of an on sight.
Gear - 'how's the gear?' i.e 'does the climb protect?'
Runout - no gear!
Sandbag - casually recommending a notoriously difficult climb
Choss - Spoiled climber's term for the slightest imperfections in the rock
Off width - a crack too big too for hands to fit, but too tight to get the whole body into
Biner - nobody says carabiner
Rope gun - the better climber with a posse of beginners
Belay monkey(s) - anyone but the untouchable Rope gun

[SSSdave]

I've always had a similar reaction to that term. Many Yosemite Valley rock climbers and snow skiers made a living at least at some time of their lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, the land of jobs, where there has always been considerable product engineering and design especially with electronics where much of the current hi tech jargon first develops from those gurus writing processes for corporations, writing technical books, and teaching them at top universities. I've worked in Silicon Valley in electronic engineering groups for over 4 decades and as Tom_H noted, it has long been used in product development cycles. The Beta phase is a post Alpha prototype phase where early manufacturing product is given to select customers that then provide actual external customer feedback to tweak final product designs. Thus is an information feedback phase...Beta.

So young rock climbers and snow skiers and snowboarders that have always had a style of using slang began using the term especially during the Usenet and early World Wide Web Internet years that after AOL exploded in the late 90s spewed out a long list of jargon that ordinary noobs then began using because they thought it was cool. One of the worst places to read such slang is on a snowboarding web forum. This links to a classic very crude site where such slang as GAPER is used nauseatingly. Maggots are actually those that were members of the old notorious Powder Magazine web site forum where any Noobs making even the slightest stupid posts were then unmercifully mutilated for amusement. Note am a old bump and powder skier.


https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/sho ... he-Maggots

David