Word: worded
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...most striking feature of college-life is its dialect. One unskilled in the student's phraseology hears a conversation carried on in which occur words apparently so distorted that he is unable to intelligently understand its purport, and at first is inclined to call it mere jargon. There is in most cases, however, a remarkable aptness of these words to their end, though many are not long-lived, and usually not more than two or three colleges at once use the same word to express the same thing...
What is here known as a "squirt" is called at other places a "rowl" or "rush." The analogy between the sudden ejection of water from a pipe and the quick and forcible expulsion of words from the mouth probably gave rise to this word, which so aptly expresses what it is intended to by sound merely. At some colleges a person of a religious turn of mind is variously denominated "evangelical," "long-ear," and "donkey." I confess myself as ignorant of the similarity which exists between these terms and that which they define as any from the ranks...
...might extend this piece indefinitely by showing synonymous expressions for words now in use here, such as "nuts," equivalent to "scrub," "mossy heads" to "senior," "cad" to "snob," "busky" to "sprung," "suck" to "crib"; but enough has been given. Even the tutors and professors are not exempted from nicknames, which are supposed to be more appropriate than the ones with which they were christened. Nearly every man in college has some word given him by his classmates which fits him better than it would any one else, generally taking its origin from some real or imagined foible. If he inclines...
...wish to mention one example of a college-coined word, originating here, which has attained a celebrity equal to that which the students of Cambridge, England, have given to "Hobson's choice," and that is the word "Yankee." It was in circulation here about 1713. According to Dr. William Gordon, Farmer Jonathan Hastings was a man from whom the students used to hire horses. He would use the expression, "A Yankee good horse," to denote an excellent good horse. The students gave him the name of Yankee Jon. Yankee became a by-word to denote a silly, awkward person...
...short a time, and only at this late day, men have become possessed with the desire for thorough intellectual training. For a man to be learned and accomplished is nothing new in theory or in practice; but the separation of learning and intellectual training from religion, - using the word in its broadest sense, - or rather the elevation of the one above the other, is something as new as it is startling...