Word: poled
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...hectic weeks they persecute the freshman into avoiding forbidden gates, scrupulously wearing their beanies to bed, and serenading Pembroke at two in the morning. The climax of this hazing comes in a "greased-pole fight," when freshmen battle sophomores for a little white flag perched on a tall greasy pole. The sophomores have lost the trophy only twice in the V. C.'s history. But regardless of outcome, the freshmen have legally earned the right to toss off their beanies...
...North Pole...
...underground shrine at Sèvres, near Paris. Replacing a babel of medieval units, they originated in the spurt of innovation that followed the French Revolution. The newfangled meter was intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance between the earth's equator and the North Pole, but difficulties of measurement made the exact length hard to determine. So the meter that was finally accepted (39.37 in. in length) was almost as arbitrary a unit as the ells, feet, rods and pieds de roi that it replaced...
Count Leo Tolstoy believed that "gymnastics do not interfere with running an estate." His serfs disagreed. "You come to the master for orders," complained the village elder, "and the master in a red shirt is hanging upside down from a pole; his hair is all hanging around, his face flushed. You don't know whether to listen to orders or stand and gape...
Most Russians found themselves in the elder's predicament when Tolstoy, his face more flushed than ever, started pole-hanging in the sphere of politics and morals. Some listened passionately to his revolutionary edicts; other gaped and wished the old man would stick to art. Anton Chekhov, who was born (1860) 32 years after Tolstoy, started by listening, but eventually decided that he could do better gymnastics...