Climbing Vernacular
“Beta”

Matthew Rube
Hanover, New Hampshire
May 19, 2019

Informant Data:

Matthew Rube is a 21-year-old student in his final year at Dartmouth College. He was born in New York City, New York, United States on August 19, 1997. Matt has two younger siblings: a brother and a sister. His mother and father are both lawyers. His family origins are Western European Jewish and Eastern European Jewish (Ukrainian). Matt is white, upper-middle class, and Jewish. Matt has been climbing since he was 11 years old. When Matt started training to be a climber, his parents would drive him long distances and then wait as he practiced. This lead to them picking up climbing too to mediate long hours waiting for him in the gym. His siblings both climb: his sister is a high-level competitive climber and his brother climbs recreationally. Matt has been an elite-level competitive climber since elementary school and to this day. He founded the climbing team at Dartmouth College and was the captain for all four years. He competes indoors and climbs outdoors.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Climbing is a very social and collaborative sport. For most types of climbing, there needs to be a minimum of two people: one to belay and one to climb. Usually, two or more people will go to a gym or to an outdoor climbing area together and then trade off on who belays and who climbs on a given route. As such, multiple people tend to be taking turns trying to climb one climb until everyone is satisfied and would like to try a different climb. This setup often results in many discussions about the climbs as people are attempting them or between the attempts. Climbs on the wall will shout down asking for advice and observers or belayers will shout up with different options. Between climbs, groups of climbers will stand around and discuss the climb, pointing out the hard parts and discussing possible strategies or things that had worked for them previously.

• Social Context: The item of folklore collected is a vernacular term used in conversation between two climbers. This term is a very common term and is usually one of the first pieces of vernacular a new climber learns when they begin participating in the sport. Because the nature of this piece of vernacular is to share climbing wisdom, usually it is performed by a more experienced climber to a less experienced climber. However, this is not always the power dynamic at play. Sometimes this vernacular can be used between two climbers of equal level. In this case this is speculative wisdom (i.e. “this might work” or “I think we could try this”) as opposed to definitive advice.

  The purpose of the vernacular is to create a sense of community amongst climbers. There is so much vernacular within the climbing community that it can be difficult to understand conversations about climbing as a non-climber. This likely stems from the significant pride that climbers have as members of a counter-culture. The vernacular serves to create a sense of inclusion and exclusivity. Furthermore, the vernacular works to capture an idea that usually needs to be conveyed with more words; therefore, in addition to being a tool of group-cohesion, it is also a tool of efficiency.

Text:    

[I have recorded “beta” not exactly as Matt told it but as close as possible with the notes that I took. This is meant to be an accurate representation of his words, but is ultimately in my own phrasing]

The term “beta” is used by climbers in place of the word advice or strategy. Beta can refer to multiple things: how to do a particular climbing move, how to hold a particular climbing hold, how to get passed a particularly hard section of their current climb. Beta is a noun (i.e. “what’s the beta?” or “I have the beta”).

There is no one beta for a climb. The beta can vary based on the characteristics of the climber. For example, the beta for a short person is going to be different than the beta for a tall person due to differences in reach. The beta can also vary based on the characteristics of a climb. For example, there can be multiple moves that would work to get the climber passed a particularly tough spot on the wall; there are, therefore, multiple betas.

Olivia Hunter, Aged 21
22 N Park St., Apartment 201, Hanover NH
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring 2019