Coach implores surfers to avoid using “gross” word kook

"It's such a gross hangover from 1960s surf culture."

Of all the slurs out there, “kook” has always seemed relatively benign. It does not reference sex nor race, age nor ability. Anyone can be a kook regardless of skill, hair color, the amount of professional surfing trophies on the mantle. In a word, or, or two, “kook” is equal opportunity.

An Australian surf coach very much disagrees, though, and has recorded a public service announcement imploring kook’s cancellation. In a serious to-camera piece, the sensitive man in his mid-40s declares:

Don’t be one of the surfers that use the word kook. Kook is this kind of belittling word that we use to describe people who are either not very good at surfing or don’t know something about surfing or surf culture. It’s kinda gross to use it. It’s such a gross hangover from 1960s surf culture.

According to Matt Warshaw’s very important Encyclopedia of surfing, “Originally a Hawaiian slang expression, the surf-variant of ‘kook’ was probably first used by mainland surfers not long after World War II.”

Kook” became a popular-outside-of-surfing expression, according to Surfer Today, “following the US TV series ’77 Sunset Strip,’ in which a very eccentric character – Gerald Lloyd Kookson III (Edd Byrnes) – is nicknamed ‘Kookie.’

Cancelling it will, in any case, leave a rather large hole in surfing’s vernacular. Any thoughts of what it can be replaced with?

Thank you for your service.