COLLEGE SLANG A LANGUAGE ALL ITS OWN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19472, 6 May 1925, Page 11

COLLEGE SLANG A LANGUAGE ALL ITS OWN.

Mystic phrases, everlastingly remits that allow the initiated to cuts that allow the iniated to make words do the work of sen-tences—-these are some characteristics of English as it is spoken by the undergraduates of our universities. The college language may differ, as between certain broadly defined localities, and even between neighbouring colleges, and yet there seems to be a remarkable resemblance in this undergraduate argot, whether it is spoken ’way Down East or on the Pacific slope. This “slanguage,” asserts Fredson Bowers, editor of the Brown University daily newspaper, has made “modem campus co-versation like a foreign tongue even to the graduate of a few years ago, and entirely unintelligible to the outside pub??c that has had nothing to do with college boys.” The college editor’s article continnes, as summarised by the Providence Journal and the Brooklyn Eagle: Just as business men talk of "bears” and “bulls,” “par” and “gross profits” to their mystified wives whose own convert sation afiput “voile,” “bias” and other technicalities of dress is equally unintelligible to their equally bored husbands, so slang, and many idioms have grown up among college students, applied to the craft of studying, which is their business. An. equal, if not a greater amount, has also come into use, being due to the peculiarly different life they lead from other people in the world at large. Truly strange and varied is the vernacular arising around the process of college education. Classes arc “cut” when they are not attended. An easy course of study which does not entail much work is designated a “snap.” Courses in economics are called “ec” or “cccie,” and those in English 'literature are invariably shortened to “lit.” A “flunk” is a man who has failed to pass an examination, and a “grind” is a student who does nothing whatsoever but study, and has no thought for anything else. The class just before lunch is feelingly and often profanely spoken of as the “starvation hour,” and the president of the college is often known as “the prex” or “piexy.” A term which has puzzled most' laymen who have never lived in a modern college atmosphere is “wet." Now the term “wet” is employed to designate all sorts of things, and covers many meanings. If a man dresses in some peculiar way which'other college men think is .rithculous and shows some certain mental deficiency bn his part, he is “wet” A loud-mouthed braggart is “wet” as l well as an overdressed man who fails .to carry it off, and is manifestly not what ho is trying to be. Bciftg “wet” implies the lack of a sense of humour and proportion, the absence ofi a sense of sophistication and good breeding. Another popular term is "dumb.” A girl is “dumb” if she cannot talk interestingly and at her case; she is also “dumb” if she is unaware of many of the obvious facts of life. College dances are often called “drags,” and taking a girl to one of them is “dragging,” a term which assumes new force when considered by an outside spectator of an average college dance. A girl is almost universally called a “woman," or in humorous disrespect, a “bimbo.” If a man goes around continually with a particular girl, she is known as “the wife.” : Occasionally the college man goes out to see some girl he has never met befqre. ( This is a “blind date,” and many are the poignant memories thereof! “Petting” noy exists only in the college novels, the more forceful, if more obscure, “necking” having taken, its . place to describe amorous adventures, “A party” can either be applied in description of a girl who “necks” or of the actual “necking.” “Smooth” is more being well-dressed in an unconscious, inconspicuous manner; “doggy” being well-dressed somewhat Consciously and slightly conspicuously. If a man is called “Joe Brooks” he is the acme of perfection in dress. This comes, from the popularity of a well-known sartorial authority. “Joe Zilsch” corresponds to “John Doe” in the college world, and is used indiscriminately to designate any one, usually with a humorous intention. The word “Joe” comes from “Joe Brooks,” and “Zilsch” seems to have been , coined at first as an imaginary instrument in an Orchestra vaguely resembling the big bass horn. To put some of these expressions into actual use, a possible conversation between two college men might run as follows : “Why, hello Jim, you’re looking pretty smooth to-night. Where’d you get the doggy scarf? Old Joe Brooks himself, aren’t you? Ton must be dragging a woman to the dance.” “Yes, worse luck. The wife’s away,and I got played for fish by some him. Wait until to-morrow and listen to the beating I’ll get from the boys after they see her. Sleigh-bells for me, all right. You going?” “No, got a blind date on to-night. All I’ve got’s her name. Do you know her?” “Sure, used to play around with her last year. She’s a pretty good party. That wet smack Davis plays her pretty steady.” , “Well, so long, got to get back early and bone some ec. I flunked the last quiz, and if I don’t start grinding for the finals, I’m going to be out of luck.” That is a fair example of a probable conversation, a bit concentrated perhaps, between two young college men in certain localities, in the year 1925. But college slang changes so rapidly and varies sq much in different colleges that all this may be completely outmoded in a year or so.