Word: slanging
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...prominent journal has recently published a sarcastic article on "Harvard slang" tending to show that although we are versed in many strange tongues and, strange to say, even in our own, we never speak in any of them, but express our ripest ideas for the most part in the questionable dialect of Romany. It is true, as the writer claims, that the use of slang at Harvard is almost universal. To illustrate. Let us drop from the college vocabulary that long list of slang words and phrases beginning with the ubiquitous "chestnut" and ending with the non-committal...
Boys' colleges and girls' boarding schools are noted as being the nurseries and hot beds of slang. Indeed, we would really think something was wanted if we did not occasionally hear a slang word or phrase in the conversation of a college student. We are, to be sure, condemned without stint by purists and over-sensative people for what they call the murdering of the English language. There are slang words which are weak, puerile, nonsensical; but there are others which express thoughts with a greater force and clearness than do any words in good repute. For example, what word...
...flunk," "clump," and "smash" are the most common. The contemptible act of a student who endeavors to ingratiate himself with an instructor by his seeming interest in lessons and officious civilities, now known as "toadying," was formerly called "fishing." The words "cram" and "cut" have almost ceased to be slang, and are now regarded as fixed in the language...
...would be impossible to enumerate even a small portion of the cant slang words in use, for every college has a dialect of its own, and a small dictionary would be required to contain the most common. Some persons claim that they can tell from what college a man hails by the slang he uses...
From the 'Varsity we take the following explanation of the origin of the term "plucked," which first came into vogue at Oxford. The choice bit of college slang was, at first, of a very different significance from that which now attaches to it. Its present meaning is very nearly equivalent to that of our own term, "dropped," a term which. in all probability, will never require any very elaborate explanation. Speaking of the functions of an Oxford proctor, the 'Varsity says...