Emitting a strangled croak, he toppled over the side. It seems his airway was obstructed by a rather sticky bunch of acronyms. As MUD, I thought. Acronyms are the curse of the late 20th century. Quite the opposite.
All adventure sports have their jargon.
Climbers inhabit a mystery world of snargs, sprags and fingery cruxes. Surfers relish fat lips, hollow pits and gruftlebuckets. But these idioms express concepts not previously served by English. Diving has a smokescreen for a language. There is also a militaristic element at work here.