A Collection of College Words and Customs is a Webnovel created by Benjamin Homer Hall.
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TICKER. One who recites without knowing what he is talking about; one entirely independent of any book-knowledge.
If any “_Ticker_” dare to look A stealthy moment on his book.
_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 123.
TICKING. The act of reciting without knowing anything about the lesson.
And what with _ticking_, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, and deading, am candidate for a piece of parchment to-morrow.–_Harv. Reg._, p. 194.
TIGHT. A common slang term among students; the comparative, of which _drunk_ is the superlative.
Some twenty of as jolly chaps as e’er got jolly _tight_.
_Poem before Y.H._, 1849.
Hast spent the livelong night In smoking Esculapios,–in getting jolly _tight_?
_Poem before Iadma_, 1850.
He clenched his fist as fain for fight, Sank back, and gently murmured “_tight_.”
_MS. Poem_, W.F. Allen, 1848.
While fathers, are bursting with rage and spite, And old ladies vow that the students are _tight_.
_Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.
Speaking of the word “drunk,” the Burlington Sentinel remarks: “The last synonyme that we have observed is ‘_tight_,’ a term, it strikes us, rather inappropriate, since a ‘tight’ man, in the cant use of the word, is almost always a ‘loose character.’ We give a list of a few of the various words and phrases which have been in use, at one time or another, to signify some stage of inebriation: Over the bay, half seas over, hot, high, corned, cut, c.o.c.ked, shaved, disguised, jammed, damaged, sleepy, tired, discouraged, snuffy, whipped, how come ye so, breezy, smoked, top-heavy, fuddled, groggy, tipsy, smashed, swipy, slewed, cronk, salted down, how fare ye, on the lee lurch, all sails set, three sheets in the wind, well under way, battered, blowing, snubbed, sawed, boosy, bruised, screwed, soaked, comfortable, stimulated, jug-steamed, tangle-legged, fogmatic, blue-eyed, a pa.s.senger in the Cape Ann stage, striped, faint, shot in the neck, bamboozled, weak-jointed, got a brick in his hat, got a turkey on his back.”
Dr. Franklin, in speaking of the intemperate drinker, says, he will never, or seldom, allow that he is drunk; he may be “boosy, cosey, foxed, merry, mellow, fuddled, groatable, confoundedly cut, may see two moons, be among the Philistines, in a very good humor, have been in the sun, is a little feverish, pretty well entered, &c., but _never drunk_.”
A highly entertaining list of the phrases which the Germans employ “to clothe in a tolerable garb of decorum that dreamy condition into which Bacchus frequently throws his votaries,” is given in _Howitt’s Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., pp. 296, 297.
See SPRUNG.
2. At Williams College, this word is sometimes used as an exclamation; e.g. “O _tight_!”
TIGHT FIT. At the University of Vermont, a good joke is denominated by the students a _tight fit_, and the jokee is said to be “hard up.”
TILE. A hat. Evidently suggested by the meaning of the word, a covering for the roof of buildings.
Then, taking it from off his head, began to brush his “_tile_.”
_Poem before the Iadma_, 1850.
TOADY. A fawning, obsequious parasite; a toad-eater. In college cant, one who seeks or gains favor with an instructor or popularity with his cla.s.smates by mean and sycophantic actions.
TOADY. To flatter any one for gain.–_Halliwell_.
TOM. The great bell of Christ Church, Oxford, which formerly belonged to Osney Abbey.
“This bell,” says the Oxford Guide, “was recast in 1680, its weight being about 17,000 pounds; more than double the weight of the great bell in St. Paul’s, London. This bell has always been represented as one of the finest in England, but even at the risk of dispelling an illusion under which most Oxford men have labored, and which every member of Christ Church has indulged in from 1680 to the present time, touching the fancied superiority of mighty Tom, it must be confessed that it is neither an accurate nor a musical bell. The note, as we are a.s.sured by the learned in these matters, ought to be B flat, but is not so. On the contrary, the bell is imperfect and inharmonious, and requires, in the opinion of those best informed, and of most experience, to be recast. It is, however, still a great curiosity, and may be seen by applying to the porter at Tom-Gate lodge.”–Ed. 1847, p. 5, note a.
TO THE _n(-th.)_, TO THE _n + 1(-th.)_ Among English Cantabs these algebraic expressions are used as intensives to denote the most energetic way of doing anything.–_Bristed_.
TOWNEY. The name by which a student in an American college is accustomed to designate any young man residing in the town in which the college is situated, who is not a collegian.
And _Towneys_ left when she showed fight.
_Pow-wow of Cla.s.s of ’58, Yale Coll._
TRANSLATION. The act of turning one language into another.
At the University of Cambridge, Eng., this word is applied more particularly to the turning of Greek or Latin into English.
In composition and cram I was yet untried, and the _translations_ in lecture-room were not difficult to acquit one’s self on respectably.–_Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.
34.
TRANSMITTENDUM, _pl._ TRANSMITTENDA or TRANSMITTENDUMS. Anything transmitted, or handed down from one to another.
Students, on withdrawing from college, often leave in the room which they last occupied, pictures, looking-gla.s.ses, chairs, &c., there to remain, and to be handed down to the latest posterity.
Articles thus left are called _transmittenda_.
The Great Mathematical Slate was a _transmittendum_ to the best mathematical scholar in each cla.s.s.–_MS. note in Cat. Med. Fac.
Soc._, 1833, p. 16.
TRENCHER-CAP. A-name, sometimes given to the square head-covering worn by students in the English universities. Used figuratively to denote collegiate power.
The _trencher-cap_ has claimed a right to take its part in the movements which make or mar the destinies of nations, by the side of plumed casque and priestly tiara.–_The English Universities and their Reforms_, in _Blackwood’s Mag._, Feb. 1849.
TRIANGLE. At Union College, a urinal, so called from its shape.
TRIENNIAL, or TRIENNIAL CATALOGUE. In American colleges, a catalogue issued once in three years. This catalogue contains the names of the officers and students, arranged according to the years in which they were connected with the college, an account of the high public offices which they have filled, degrees which they have received, time of death, &c.[66]
The _Triennial Catalogue_ becomes increasingly a mournful record–it should be monitory, as well as mournful–to survivors, looking at the stars thickening on it, from one date to another.–_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 198.
Our tale shall be told by a silent star, On the page of some future _Triennial_.
_Cla.s.s Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1849, p. 4.
TRIMESTER. Latin _trimestris_; _tres_, three, and _mensis_, month.