The words
Words and Culture
The words, the media and the etiquette of the sport, as documents record them. The table below has 6 rows: 5 are pages under this heading, and the one left, the events, is answered under Racing. Every term is sighted in a named source and graded by what that source is, and a definition is this site's own words, never a quotation.
Which of these do you want?
| Page | Answers | Rests on | Size and certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glossary Built | What a word of the sport means, where it was sighted, and how sure that sighting is. | Rulebook glossaries, sanctioning bodies' own pages, period press and catalogues, this project's research; forum sightings say so and quote nobody. | 271 terms, 214 confirmed in a document, 30 contested. |
| Words we do not use Built | Which words this site refuses, why, and which refused words the research later cleared. | The same research, read against the sources it could reach. | 11 refused, 9 cleared since the first pass. |
| The media Built | The magazines, newsletters, tapes, websites, forums and games that recorded the sport, with what may be reused and what may only be named. | Library catalogues, publishers' own records, the rights positions from the research, the games catalogue already on this site. | 32 titles in 5 languages, 2 quotable, 10 needing permission. |
| Films Built | Which films, programmes and tapes show a personal watercraft, what the scene shows, and which craft it is. | A cited source for every title, graded: makers' and studios' own pages, period press, archive and library catalogues. | 35 titles from 1975 to 2026, none of the footage hosted here. |
| Events Built | The World Finals and the tours, edition by edition where a document exists; it lives under Racing. | Result sheets and the bodies' own pages, to be counted from the sheet. | Built under Racing; no edition counted yet. |
| Etiquette Built | What the rulebooks say about conduct, and what the press has recorded of how a race weekend is done. | Rulebooks and press only, until the forums' administrators have been asked about their members' words. | 10 sections, 57 rules cited, 4 things left out and said so. |
New to the sport itself? Start here walks through the path to a first race in plain words, with every rule cited.
The rules of the sport, the bodies that run it and the race weekend are under Racing; the class names are explained in plain words at Classes in plain words. If a word you use is missing or wrongly read, say so and say where you have seen it in print.
271 terms · 11 refused · 7 forum sightings, 0 quoted