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internetgiraffekid1673 · 2 months ago

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Some Boy-Scout-isms

Home from work sick today, and I wanna share something with ya'll that I feel is a fairly unique experience: My scout-isms. SO many of the things I say is language I picked up in Boy Scouts, but it's subtle enough that I don't think people realize that's why I'm saying it.

I'm an eagle scout, right? I was in the BSA for 5 years, all throughout middle and high school. I made some of my closest life friends there, was mentored by a ton of truly incredible people, had some of the worst challenges and experiences of my life, and ultimately came out on the other side as a better and deeply changed person. It was critical to my development as a human being, to the point that the name I use online (Abby) is my nickname from scouts.

It was also a BLAST. My patrol was like my second family and we were all a bunch of chaotic little shits who spent WAY too much time around each other. The BSA organization in general is also just a great structure to do a lot of really fun things.

One of those really fun things is the BSA vernacular. This is one of the things that is SUPER off putting to "outsiders." It's sort of like walking into a tight knit group of friends who speak in a lot of movie quotes, but you haven't seen any of the movies.

Today, I am here to "show you the movies" or let you all in on some of the jokes that you can find in scouts. While some of these are found in hust about any troop, some of them are inside jokes that were specific to my troop.

This will be subsectioned and cut because it will get long, since I'll have to explain scouting culture along the way. This is also by NO MEANS a comprehensive list because HOLY CRAP there's a lot.

Call and Response:

Being an organization that had it's roots in military training, there are a lot of call and response phrases in scouting. The typical way you're introduced to these as a new scout is simply hearing everyone say the response in reaction to the call phrase without telling you anything. Eventually you'll catch on and start adding your own phrases. Here are some of the most common ones from my troop:

Call: "Everybody stand up!"

Response: "STAND UP? I LOVE standing up! It's my favorite thing to do!"

Common Permutations:

"STAND UP? I LOVE standing up! It's my THIRD favorite thing to do! After laying down and sitting!"

"STAND UP? I HATE standing up! Screw you [caller's name]"

"SIT DOWN? I LOVE sitting down! It's my favorite thing to do! No seriously, thank goodness!"

Call: "I liked it"

Response: "WE liked it! A lot!"

Call: "Fashion Show! Fashion Show!"

Response: everybody joins in on the chant, but half the group inevitably splits off into "SHOW THE FASHION! SHOW THE FASHION!"

Call: the buzzword "delegation" which would inevitably get interrupted with

Response: "DICTATORSHIP! In fact---communism! The best choice I ever made!"

Response to the response: "No, you mean the best choice WE ever made!"

Notes: This one is troop specific and part of an ongoing and long-winded series of jokes about whether our scout troop was a democracy or a dictatorship and whether or not delegation was code for "I don't want to."

Call: "We're gonna sing a song!"

Response: "A song! A song! We're gonna sing a song, HEY!"

Notes: almost always immediately followed by the "stand up" call

Call: You are all "DIS---"

Proper Response: "MISSED!" This makes it so the full phrase is Dismissed.

Common Permutations:

"MISSED SIR!"

"MISSED MARCY!"

". . . ." ". . . ." "StrACtEd sIr!" *voice crack required*

"ASEMBLING!" Followed by running in different directions like a rat swarm.

"MEMBERED!"

"COMBOMBULATED!"

Honestly anything you could add a "dis" prefix to, but my favorite is definitely the one I always used when I was in charge directly after a campout:

"GUSTING all of you go shower!"

Call: "Ooooooh!"

Response: "Aaaaaaah! Neato!"

Alt Response: "Aaaaaaahhhh! Dang, that's a hot unit!"

Call: "SHHHHHH"

Response: *rhythmically, while holding a three fingered scout salute up to your mouth with each beat* "SH SH SH SH SH SH"

Notes: Only ever employed by my patrol (the girls patrol). One time, when the whole troop was getting lectured by the scoutmaster, the 7 year-old younger sister of one of my patrol members (who was also the scoutmaster's daughter) took it upon herself to keep us all shut up. She did so by holding the Spirit Stick and marching up and down in front of us going "SH SH SH SH" with the scout sign to her lips like some sort of drill sergeant. It was so cute we all started doing it, and also really distracting from the whole lecture.

Patrol Cheers:

So for those of you who don't know, this is how BSA is structured:

Every subset of scouts in the same geographic area with the same chartered organization functions as a big group called the "unit." You all share the same number on your uniforms, and it includes the cub scouts, the boys troop, the girls troop, the venture troop, and the sea scouts (most places only have the first three). You'll all usually attend awards ceremonies and expos and parades and whatnots together, but each group usually doesn't interact much beyond that.

This is with the exception of the girls troop and the boys troop. While most locations that have a girls troop usually also have a boys troop, that's not true 100% of the time. It's up to each unit's discretion on how much the boys troop and the girls troop interacts, and it usually depends on how big those troops are. My girls troop had an average of 5 members and never had more than 8, so we functioned as just a patrol of the boys troop.

Patrols are what the troops break down into. These are smaller groups, usually sorted by age and skill level consisting of 3 to 8 members (hence why the girls troop was just a patrol of the boys one). These are the people you share tents with, share meals with, attend merit badge classes with, buddy up with, do skill levels and breakout groups with and are generally just Your People while in your scouts.

Generally, a troop will hold annual re-elections of their leadership. This re-election time also gives the patrols an opportunity to shuffle around in reaction to gaining or losing members or changing skill levels and whatnot. So like, if you got 10 cub scouts who graduated to the main troop that year, you're gonna have to make some new patrols. Similarly, if 5 of your members just graduated high school and aged out of scouting, you're gonna have to merge some patrols.

Whenever a patrol is formed, it needs a name! This name can be pretty much whatever you want, and lots of times, the patrol will get renamed at re-elections, even if the members don't change. The name is usually accompanied by a patrol patch though, so they can also stay fairly static throughout the years, so that the patch can be reused. It also comes with a patrol cheer and a patrol flag. While our troop never got around to making flags, we DID do cheers. You would yell your cheer whenever your patrol name was said in a meeting. These were all the patrols and all the cheers throughout my years in scouting:

The Book Thieves Patrol:

My patrol/the girls patrol! We made this name in honor of fact that we were all avid readers when I was 12, and it stuck. For all I know, it's still the name for the girls patrol even though all the original members have graduated!

Our cheer was a chime-in style with specific parts assigned to specific members. I'll just use their scout nicknames for this. Perhaps someday I'll explain them all.

Bob: "WE'LL STEAL YOUR BOOKS!"

Whole patrol: "AND YOUR MONEY!"

Me: "AND YOUR LEFT SHOE!" (Lilo and Stitch reference for those of you who are lost)

Eventually, the boys decided to get in on the action, and added their own parts:

South: "WHAT ABOUT THE RIGHT SOCK?"

Human Garbage Disposal: "YOU'LL DO YOUR BEST!" always followed by my patrol-mate:

Eugene Fitzherbert: "I'LL DO MY WORST" in the cowboy gun duel stance.

The Pakana Patrol:

This was always the name given to the oldest and most experienced boys patrol. They're named after the world war ii rescue tugboat that was operated by our founder's great grandfather. Subsequently, their cheer was:

"Pakana Pakana PAKANA PAKANA GUIDING YOU TO SAFETY!" Followed by a foghorn sound effect.

Eventually, because our scoutmaster's name was Karl, which led to copious quoting of the "KAR-EL that KILLS people" line, South (you're gonna notice him popping up a lot in my scout stories) would swap the foghorn for "KAR-EL"

The Fallout Duckies Patrol:

Not in formation for a particularly long time, and very seldom employed their cheer. This is because their cheer was a bomb sound effect and then dropping on the floor like they'd just died, which nobody has the energy for like 90% of the time.

The Samurai Patrol:

This patrol was "the other boys patrol" for my majority of time in scouting. They named themselves this in reference to getting their original scout skit "Mortal Kombat" banned---it was a truly riveting number where they just had a lightsaber fight with very big sticks for like 10 minutes.

Anyway, their cheer was to the tune of the Bill Nye Theme song and they'd all go: "Bill Nye the Samurai! BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL---" and they'd keep chanting Bill until whoever was leading the meeting cut them off like a conducter.

The Airborne Patrol:

This is what the Samurai renamed themselves to about halfway through my scouting tenure. This was around the time the Book Thieves had the startling revelation that we had surpassed the Samurai in terms of experience and skill, even if we were still behind the oldest Pakanas.

Their cheer was "Tally Ho and look out below!" Which was very cute and fun.

The Crispy Bacon Ninjas or the CBN:

This is what the Airborne patrol became after pretty much all of the Airbornes had graduated to Pakanas and the patrol was now populated by 10-12 year old recent graduates from Cub Scouts.

They were also colloquially referred to as "The Beans" by my beloved patrol mate Captain Jack Sparrow, since they were all but 3 apples tall, which eventually caught on with other troop members.

Their cheer was "CRISPY BACON NINJAS! *ssssssss*" However, there was a running gag amongst other patrols where we came up with other things CBN could stand for. Since we were a bunch of teenagers, a lot of them were cannibalizm or dead babies jokes (or both), but the one that was used the most got it's own response to the regular cheer:

*stage whisper* "Creepy backyard neighbors! Shhhhhh!"

Odds and Ends:

Some other scouting vernacular that doesn't really fit into the call and response category.

The Announcements Song:

I think this is probably the most widely known outside of scouting. Basically, the word announcements reached such copious overuse in meetings that the BSA made a little annoying song to react to it. And then we added more verses. And then more verses. Someday, I will sing it in it's entirety. That will be the same day I get a good microphone and camera and can con like 4 or 5 other people into helping me sing scout songs, which I will record and publish for posterity.

Anyway, the first verse that everyone knows goes:

Announcements, ANNOUNCEMENTS, A-NOW-OUNCE-MENTS!

A horrible way to die!

A horrible way to be talked to death, a horrible way to die!

Announcements, ANNOUNCEMENTS, A-NOW-OUNCE-MENTS!

It should be known I am INCAPABLE of hearing the word announcements without singing all 7 verses in my head. Thanks for nothing scouts!

Karl's Death Marches:

This one is troop-specific. Basically, the first time our troop ever went backpacking, there was rain and snow and hail and there wasn't a trail where there was supposed to be a trail. It was in the middle of July. It was a bona fide disaster that left us all completely worn out physically and emotionall. No, we did not get where we were supposed to be going.

Eventually, South started calling it "Karl's death march 1.0," and the name stuck. When we attempted the trip again the next year with MUCH better planning, that one was "Karl's death march 2.0." Subsequently, any time we went backpacking, we started referring to it as a Karl Death March. Karl's Winter Death March, Karl's Black Mountain Death March, Karl's Death March Day Hike, etc.

This got to the point where scoutmaster Karl actually carved us little turtles with custom shell patterns for each of us, strung them on paracord, and rewarded us with a skull bead for each death march we'd survived. Which, yes WOW, that was amazing! This is mine:

(It's got a giraffe with a music note because he knows me Very Well).

Various Scouting Cheers:

Instead of applauding like regular human beings, scout troops employ various hokey cheers instead, which is usually dictated by the Cheermaster. Some of the most common ones:

The ROUND of appluase: clapping your hands in a big circle

The Big Hand: Shoving your hand forcefully in front of you

The Clap and a Half: self explanatory

The Watermelon Cheer: You take your imaginary watermelon slice, you suck up all the fruit, and then you spit out all the seeds

The Banana Cheer: A little chant accompanied by miming the actions. The chant goes "PEEL bananas! PEEL PEEL! Bananas! EAT bananas! EAT EAT! Bananas! GO BANANAS! GO GO BANANAS!" and then the cheermaster runs off stage like a hooligan.

"RA RA REE! KICK EM IN THE KNEE! RA RA RASS! KICK EM IN THE OTHER KNEE!"

That's all for now! Like I said, this is far from a comprehensive list and have SO many fun scouting stories I could tell. Come and pester me about it on this post or anywhere else you like, and please chime in with some of your own troop vernacular!

Praying I get better, and peace out!

#giraffe's ramblings #life stories #bsa #boy scouts #boy scouts of america #shit my friends say #scouting #scout stories #tumblrstake #my scout troop was secular since the church had pulled out of scouting by that point #but a lot of traditions carried over and I get the sense ya'll will enjoy this #this got long #again #whoops #look this was MY thing for a LONG time #it's important to me and I have stuff to say!

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