One day back in '02, a friend and I were sitting at our favorite beach talking about surf conditions when the idea came to mind to start a website for the many words and phrases surfers use.
There's no doubt that surfers have a distinct language. After all, he and I had a long discussion using words that, to the unschooled, would have sounded like an foreign language. Shortly thereafter, the idea gelled and Riptionary.com was launched.
Although the site wasn't an instant success, over time, it gained momentum and surfers began submitting their entries. Now, because of the generous contributions from fellow surfers, Riptionary has grown from a few dozen entries into the largest online surf lingo dictionary with well over 1,000 unique entries spanning surf culture niches from around the world.
Today we're a top PageRank site at Google and garner a top-tier (if not the top) position in every leading domestic and international search engine for surf lingo and surf culture related searches. On average, we receive over 65,000 unique sessions per month and to date have served well over eight million lexicon page views to our patrons. Our site is regularly used as a reference source by everyone from students and journalists to marketing firms and anthropologists. We've even been the source for the naming of un upscale Sand Diego, California restaurant, Zimzala.
Now, we're no experts in etymology nor do we claim to be - we're surfers, but Riptionary.com isn't really about the study of the language per-se. From the start, our focus has been on the use of slang in surfers' every day lives - mainly because it's more fun, but also because it's no less important when studying past, present and the evolution of surf culture.
We try to make Riptionary.com useful, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about our site, please use our Contact Us page to let us know.
We hope you find Riptionary.com fun, interesting and informative.
Surf On!
Scott A. Mathews
Founder, Chief Surfologist
Riptionary.com - Surf Lingo Lexicon
