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bumper shining
DCHP-2 (Nov 2012)
Spelling variants:bumper-shining
n. — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Games
holding on to the back of a vehicle on a snowy or icy road in order to be dragged along for a ride.
Type: 1. Origin — The term is most common in Canada (see Chart 1). While internet hits are virtually restricted to Manitoba (see Chart 2), the practice is also common in Saskatchewan as the quotations show. The term is used primarily in the spoken language, and though it is a low-frequency item on the internet, the regional spread needs to be corrected to include Saskatchewan.
See also COD-2, s.v. "bumper shining", which is marked "Man. & Sask.".
See also COD-2, s.v. "bumper shining", which is marked "Man. & Sask.".
Quotations
1970
A police spokesman said the department has received a number of reports and complaints of children grabbing onto the bumpers of cars and sliding along for a free ride. [...]
Parents are asked to keep an eye on their youngsters and to instruct them carefully in the dangers of what is now termed "bumper-shining".
2000
The older boys did the scraping and shovelling, too. After a blizzard, they got to skip one of their morning classes to go out and clean the rink. The older boys liked blizzards.
The older boys liked to bumper shine.
2006
We played guns with live BB and pellet guns (I nearly lost an eye once) and went 'bumper-shining' behind moving cars on the icy streets, getting towed, and often dragged, for several blocks.
2012
Like "bumper-shining" cars in the winter. You waited at a red light and then snuck behind a stopped car and hooked your mitts onto some chrome to go for a joy ride or save the dime a bus used to cost.
And jumping off roofs. More broken legs were caused from not knowing what was under a pile of snow than from bumper shining, but then six-year-old Russell Carlson went under the wheels of a McGregor Street bus one day beside the Avenue Meat Market and never got to know the pleasures of landing in a soft snowbank from a height of three metres.
2014
Several conditions had to be met before bumper shining was possible. First, it had to be cold out. Brass-monkey cold. Ice-fog cold. Tonguestuck cold. You also needed footwear without much traction. But this happened to be the age of mukluks. Not the fancy fur ones but plain grey horsehide utilitarian ones. The uppers, which laced up through metal eyelets, were rough, kind of like suede. But the bottoms were smooth leather. You could slide down a hill with them if you were too tough to use a toboggan.
References
- COD-2
Images
Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 9 Oct. 2013
