Orienteering Jargon
As with all sports, orienteering often uses a lot of jargon which is totally incomprehensible for the beginner. In fact, it's still usually totally incomprehensible when you've been doing it for years - so stop worrying! We've got hold of this handy jargon-buster's guide since you've probably been wanting to know exactly what a re-entrant is for the past 25 years.
If there's anything else you're interested about but isn't on this list, email us at and we'll try to let you know.
Thanks to UNOC, MV and EUOC for parts of this list. The fact that EUOC still haven't acknowledged us for pinching part of their jargon buster is neither here nor there....
| Aiming Off | To deliberately aim to the side of a control or feature so that you know which way to turn when you get there. |
|---|---|
| Alc-O | A form of orienteering in which the competitor must down a pint (or half-pint for women's races) at each control before continuing. Not yet recognised as an official orienteering discipline (indeed rumours say that it's an officially banned sport), although our esteemed Social Sec. may be able to arrange an event. |
| Badge Event | A middle-sized orienteering event where you compete in classes according to your age/gender. Most badge events incorporate Colour Coded events too, so don't feel intimidated by them. See the courses guide. |
| Brick | Slang expression for the Emit e-card. Events using one of these are generally shown in green on the fixture list, although such events turn up rarely. |
| BOC | The British Orienteering Championships. A bit like a glorified National Event they have an individual event on a Saturday and a Relay on the Sunday. The BOC rotates round the regions so is of varying quality. |
| BOF | British Orienteering Federation - the sport's governing body in the UK. |
| BUSA | British Universities Sports Association - in orienteering pronounced 'boozer' for fairly obvious reasons - and generally refers to the annual student orienteering championships usually held sometime in the Easter vacation. |
| Catching feature | A large feature beyond a control that, when reached, informs competitors that the control has been missed. Normally a linear feature. Not to be confused with a collecting feature! |
| Championship Event | Like a National Event only more prestigious. The JK is the only real one in the UK, although the BOC is another serious contender for the position. |
| Chasing Start | Sometimes used on the final day of a multi-day event, with the
intention of providing a race in which the first person to cross the
finish line is the winner. The total time taken by each competitor
during the previous day(s) is added to an arbitrary base time to give the
start time for the competitor. Thus if a chasing start with a base
time 8am is used on the third day of a 3-day event and Matt has taken
60:00 and 75:00 on the previous two days, he will start at 10:15:00.
If Phil has taken 65:00 and 70:01, his aggregate time over the first
two days is 1 second longer, so he will start one second later at
10:15:01.
If you can think of any easier way of describing this, let us know! |
| CLOK | CLeveland Orienteering Klub - the local club for the area around Richmond, Middlesbrough and Whitby. As a member of NEOA we go to their events quite frequently. Incidentally, it's the local club for Stockton Campus! |
| Cock-up | An essential part of any orienteering event. |
| Collecting Feature | A large feature before a control that, when reached, informs competitors how far they have progressed towards the control. Normally a linear feature. Not to be confused with a catching feature! |
| Colour Coded | The 'normal' orienteering - small unless it's in the Lakes or Yorkshire (or some other similar picturesque spot), where you choose what you want to do, how far, how difficult. You compete against people from all age groups. Click here for the courses guide. |
| Compass | Small device with a needle which magically points in a vaguely-North-type direction. Always believe it - it knows where you are even if you don't. Unless there's a magnetic anomaly of course! Not to be confused with either of the two next definitions! |
| Compass Point | An O-shop, based in Lancashire. They import Silva O-Kit into Britain. |
| Compass Sport | The O-magazine for the UK. |
| Contour | Brown lines on a map linking places of equal height. Unfortunately they're not marked on the ground. |
| Contouring | Following the line of a contour whilst running across country, thereby neither gaining nor losing height. Doing it properly requires much practise. |
| Control Card | Carried by a competitor to punch at controls as proof of having been there. Lose at your peril. Often replaced by an e-card at more hi-tech or high-standard events. |
| Control Code | Each control has a unique code (usually two letters or three numbers) to let you know it is in fact not the one you were after. |
| Controls | Checkpoints which must be visited (in order) on an orienteering course. Usually marked with a red/white kite thingy. |
| Crossing Point | Place at which roads, walls, rivers, etc. may be crossed safely. Sometimes these are compulsory for safety reasons (or to avoid damaging the wall) and failure to use them can result in disqualification. |
| Depression (feeling) | What you get when you still can't find really easy control 3 after searching for a good half hour. |
| Depression (object) | A dip in the ground, usually surrounded by many others. |
| Dibber | Slang expression for the SI e-card. Events using one of these are generally shown in black on the fixture list. |
| District Event | Normally a full colour coded event, or at least an event of similar technical standard. |
| Dog Leg | Positioning of a control so that runners favour entering and leaving the control by the same route, so leading others to the control. Dog legs should be avoided if you're a planner. |
| DUAU | Durham University Athletics Union - they must be obeyed as they can reduce us to nothing within seconds. |
| E-card | Electronic version of a control card. Avoids mis-punching (apparently!) but you still have to watch out for the control numbers! It also gives you your split times for each control - so everyone will know you took five times as long as everyone else to reach really easy control 8. We do speak from experience. |
| E-punching | Short for electronic punching. Uses e-cards instead of paper control cards.
Just to be confusing there's two rival brands of e-punching available: Emit and SportIdent or SI. Basically the former is used in Scandinavia, in the North of Scotland and by the British Army; the latter elsewhere. |
| Emit | Emit is one of the rival types of e-punching. |
| Electronic dobber thingy | "Official" BOF name for the SI E-card. |
| EOD | Entry On the Day. Basically means you don't have to register in advance that you're turning up. Only generally used for colour coded and smaller events. |
| Fat Pigs | Not an insult - but a firm which provides catering to O-events. Generally extremely moreish burgers and the like. |
| Foot-O | "Ordinary" orienteering - where you run as opposed to cycling or whatever. One of the four recognised disciplines of orienteering by IOF. |
| Gaffling | Technique used in relays to produce similar courses and prevent following. It involves having 2 or 3 controls close together. Some people will have one, some will have another. Can be very cunning (that's a nice way of putting it). |
| Gully | A steep-sided re-entrant or ditch, caused by erosion rather than by man. Can be on sloping ground or flat ground. |
| Handrail | Linear feature which closely parallels your route. |
| Headless Chicken approach | Running around like a mad thing hoping you'll eventually end up in the right place. It works suprisingly well! |
| IOF | International Orienteering Federation. The governing body of the sport worldwide. Basically NEOA is to BOF as BOF is to IOF. |
| The JK | The Jan Kjellström International Festival of Orienteering. This is the biggest annual orienteering event in Britain. Named after Jan Kjellström who helped start the sport in Britain and who was tragically killed in a car crash. Held every Easter, it rotates round the different regions. It consists of two individual races (on Saturday and Sunday) with a relay on Monday. It's given this abbreviated name since no-one outside Scandinavia can pronounce Kjellström. |
| Knoll | A very small hill. |
| Linear Feature | Feature which extends for some distance in one direction, such as paths, fences and streams. Can be used as handrails. |
| Local Event | The smallest orienteering events - with only a few courses available. These range from "come and try it" to more technical events - but beginners are always welcome. These also refer to some colour coded events with limited choice of courses. |
| Magnetic anomaly | In some areas of the world (although not in Britain as far as we know), there's so much iron in the rocks that it distorts the compass reading. You will be told if this is the case - but it turns up extremely rarely (unless you're looking for an excuse as to why you did so badly). |
| Map | Aid to orienteering which often bears no resemblance whatsoever to the terrain. This generally means you're lost. |
| Map Corrections | Not all events give you a brand-new up-to-date map to run with, although this is less likely nowadays than just a few years ago. At some, you have to copy down the changes onto an elderly map. This happens before the clock starts! |
| Map Memory | Form of training where you memorise the entire map at the start of the event, or before each control, thereby either improving your run or making you hopelessly lost. |
| Mass Start | All competitors, or one competitor from each team, start at the same time. Generally used for relays. |
| Master Map | Map displayed near the start from which you copy your course onto your
own blank map. This usually happens whilst the clock is running.
Important events, such as badge events (although less important events are doing this increasingly often as well), normally provide a pre-printed map for you so you don't do this. |
| Mispunch | Technical term for punching the wrong control. |
| MTB-O | Orienteering on a mountain bike. One of the four IOF recognised orienteering disciplines. |
| National Event | A bit like a glorified Badge Event, but have to be held on a region's best terrain (so are also a bit snobbish) and have Elite classes. They also earn you more ranking points. |
| NATO | This doesn't have anything to do with North-Atlantic treaties for orienteers - it's actually Newcastle And Tyneside Orienteers - the local club for Tyneside and South Northumberland. It's a member of NEOA so we often attend their events. |
| NEOA | North East Orienteering Association - the regional body in NE England (similar bodies exist for the other areas). |
| Niche | A small re-entrant. |
| Night Event | An event held at night (now is that obvious or what?) - well, generally early evening. The only extra required is a car headlamp or two affixed to your forehead (or just a headtorch will do). Ask a passing miner for one. Can be Badge, Colour Coded, Score or even Relay. Claimed by real nutters to be the best type of orienteering. If you're very lucky, they take place in Summer when it's still light (although technically they should be known as evening events)! |
| NN | Northern Navigators orienteering club - the local club for Durham and Northumberland (but not Tyneside). It's a member of NEOA. As it's our local club, we attend their events fairly often. They provide our nearest mapped area: Houghall Woods (between Maiden Castle and Collingwood). |
| Norwegian | Event where you find out the location of the next control at each control you find. It's good for a very small area as it means you can't cheat. |
| Nutter | Someone who actually enjoys running up steep hills, falling into bogs and getting lost frequently. Real nutters even manage to get round a course without any problems at all (reminds you of anglers in the pub...). |
| O- | Short form of the word "Orienteering". |
| O-Cross | Basically a relay. The difference being that the "team" consists
of one person who has to run the entire distance. This can be a
good way of using a small area - but can also lead to you passing the
same tree stump four or five times during the same event and
punching one of the controls on every leg.
O-cross courses do tend to be abnormally long - but luckily don't turn up that often. |
| Off-string course | The next stage after the string course but before you feel experienced enough to tackle a proper colour coded course. It's where you follow a piece of string some of the way to a control, then have to leave it and seek out the control. They turn up surprisingly infrequently. |
| Orienteer (noun) | Someone who takes part in the sport of Orienteering (if you're a member of UDOC you're one already!). |
| Orienteer (verb) | To run around with map and compass trying to find controls and usually getting wet, muddy and lost in the process. |
| O-suit | Garish or sometimes revolting looking kit made from 100% synthetic fabric worn by orienteers so that they can be found more easily if they get lost. We can provide the top half if you really need one. |
| Pacing | A system of counting double-paces to measure distance covered. This allows orienteers to know if they've run too far. |
| Permanent Course | Basically what it says: a series of wooden posts permanently fixed into the ground, so you can orienteer whenever you want (with the landowner's permission of course). Instead of punching a control card, you write down the unique code found on each control. |
| Pictorials | Control descriptions expressed as meaningful/less pictures - used at
big events and supposedly easier to interpret on the run than written
descriptions but more significantly make it easy to compete overseas
(unless of course you know the Finnish for re-entrant).
Watch this space and we'll try to lay our hands on a link to an explanation of what they look like. |
| Point feature | A feature which only takes up a small area, for example boulders, pits and knolls. |
| POTOC | POTteries Orienteering Club - the local club for Stoke on Trent and round that area. It's far more relevant to us than you'd originally think! |
| Punching | How we get S&M into a sport which is basically running with a map.... You need to prove that you've been to every control on your course, so sharp pins or punches are provided for you to impale your control card with. It's not as fun as it sounds. |
| Punches | Pin-punch markers or their electronic equivalent hung at controls for competitors to punch their control card. |
| Ranking Points | Ranking points can be earned at most Badge Events and all National Events. They are an arcane mathematical system with the simple aim of proving who is best out of all the competitors, since everyone is of different age and running different courses. You get your ranking points depending on how well you do compared with everyone else in your age class - this number then determines how well you did compared with everyone else in the world. |
| Re-entrant | A small valley. |
| Regional Event | Badge Event. |
| Relay | Any event in which runners go out one after another, usually on a similar but gaffled course. Can involve any number of runners from 1 to 25, and sometimes includes night legs. |
| Ride | A sort of track through a forest, or a firebreak (varies considerably). |
| Safety Bearing | A compass bearing which, when followed, will bring a lost orienteer to a recognisable feature. |
| Score Event | A usually small event where instead of going round a set course, there are a number of controls out and you visit as many as you want in any order in a set time. There's usually severe penalties for finishing late, so beware! |
| SI | Abbreviation for SportIdent. |
| Silva | Manufacturer of orienteering equipment, most prominently compasses. |
| Ski-O | A fiendishly challenging sport physically which combines cross-country skiing and orienteering. It's one of the four IOF recognised disciplines. |
| Splits watch | Essential equipment for those of us who are into the sport a bit too much. Allows you to record how long you take between each control and so work out where you lost time on other people. If you use e-punching , this is already taken care of thus rendering one useless. |
| SportIdent | One of the rival types of e-punching. |
| String-O | A course for absolute beginners (who are usually under 5) in which all the controls are next to a length of string you must follow. Unfortunately the chance of us entering one of these events is almost certainly impossible. Unless you're drunk. However, they're generally free to enter so it all depends on what sort of mood our Treasurer is in.... |
| Trees | At most if not all events, the use of carnivorous trees is mandatory. Watch your back! |
| Trail-O | The event on which disabled and able bodied people compete on equal terms. You have to correctly identify a number of controls from a group close together. One of the four official IOF disciplines. |
| UDOC | Unscheduled Discrete Organic Chemical, or perhaps Ultrafiltered Dissolved Organic Carbon. Or even a User DOCument. It's just possible that it's us - but that's extremely unlikely. It's your call.... |
| Ultrasport | An orienteering shop. As well as having a permanent shop/mail order in Newport (Shropshire), they can be found at all large events and make their own o-kit / equipment. |
| UNOC | University of Newcastle Orienteering Club. Apparently our closest rivals. They're a member of NEOA and sometimes cooperate with NN in hosting events. |
| Unmarked bog | Wet feature of open moorland, which usually forces you to wring the water out of your shoes and control card before continuing. |
| Wilf's | The stereotypical O-caterer. They turn up to most major events and are incredibly popular, so get in that queue early if you want any dinner! |
| Winning | We have no information about this piece of jargon. Apologies. |