Title:  A Collection of College Words and Customs

Author:  Benjamin Homer Hall

Release Date:  July 9, 2004 [EBook #12864]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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A

COLLECTION

OF

College words and customs.

By B.H.  Hall.

 “Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere, cadentque Quae nunc sunt in
  honore, vocabula.”

 “Notandi sunt tibi mores.” 
    Hor. Ars Poet.

Revised and enlarged edition.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

B.H.  Hall,

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

INTRODUCTION.

The first edition of this publication was mostly compiled during the leisure hours of the last half-year of a Senior’s collegiate life, and was presented anonymously to the public with the following

“Preface.

“The Editor has an indistinct recollection of a sheet of foolscap paper, on one side of which was written, perhaps a year and a half ago, a list of twenty or thirty college phrases, followed by the euphonious titles of ‘Yale Coll.,’ ‘Harvard Coll.’  Next he calls to mind two blue-covered books, turned from their original use, as receptacles of Latin and Greek exercises, containing explanations of these and many other phrases.  His friends heard that he was hunting up odd words and queer customs, and dubbed him ‘Antiquarian,’ but in a kindly manner, spared his feelings, and did not put the vinegar ‘old’ before it.

“Two and one half quires of paper were in time covered with a strange medley, an olla-podrida of student peculiarities.  Thus did he amuse himself in his leisure hours, something like one who, as Dryden says, ‘is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words.’  By and by he heard a wish here and a wish there, whether real or otherwise he does not know, which said something about ‘type,’ ‘press,’ and used other cabalistic words, such as ‘copy,’ ‘devil,’ etc.  Then there was a gathering of papers, a transcribing of passages from letters, an arranging in alphabetical order, a correcting of proofs, and the work was done,—­poorly it may be, but with good intent.

“Some things will be found in the following pages which are neither words nor customs peculiar to colleges, and yet they have been inserted, because it was thought they would serve to explain the character of student life, and afford a little amusement to the student himself.  Society histories have been omitted, with the exception of an account of the oldest affiliated literary society in the United States.