A Collection of College Words and CustomsHall, Benjamin Homer
History
A Collection of College Words and Customs
Hall, Benjamin Homer
College students -- United States -- Language; English language -- United States -- Slang; Slang
GROUP. A crowd or throng; a number collected without any regular
form or arrangement. At Harvard College, students are not allowed
to assemble in _groups_, as is seen by the following extract from
the laws. Three persons together are considered as a _group_.
Collecting in _groups_ round the doors of the College buildings,
or in the yard, shall be considered a violation of decorum.--_Laws
Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, Suppl., p. 4.
GROUPING. Collecting together.
It will surely be incomprehensible to most students how so large a
number as six could be suffered with impunity to horde themselves
together within the limits of the college yard. In those days the
very learned laws about _grouping_ were not in existence. A
collection of two was not then considered a sure prognostic of
rebellion, and spied out vigilantly by tutoric eyes. A _group_ of
three was not reckoned a gross outrage of the college peace, and
punished severely by the subtraction of some dozens from the
numerical rank of the unfortunate youth engaged in so high a
misdemeanor. A congregation of four was not esteemed an open,
avowed contempt of the laws of decency and propriety, prophesying
utter combustion, desolation, and destruction to all buildings and
trees in the neighborhood; and lastly, a multitude of five, though
watched with a little jealousy, was not called an intolerable,
unparalleled violation of everything approaching the name of
order, absolute, downright shamelessness, worthy capital
mark-punishment, alias the loss of 87-3/4 digits!--_Harvardiana_,
Vol. III. p. 314.
The above passage and the following are both evidently of a
satirical nature.
And often _grouping_ on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse,
Till Tutor ----, coming up, commands him to disperse!
_Poem before Y.H._, 1849, p. 14.
GRUB. A hard student. Used at Williams College, and synonymous
with DIG at other colleges. A correspondent says, writing from
Williams: "Our real delvers, midnight students, are familiarly
called _Grubs_. This is a very expressive name."
A man must not be ashamed to be called a _grub_ in college, if he
would shine in the world.--_Sketches of Williams College_, p. 76.
Some there are who, though never known to read or study, are ever
ready to debate,--not "_grubs_" or "reading men," only "wordy
men."--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 246.
GRUB. To study hard; to be what is denominated a _grub_, or hard
student. "The primary sense," says Dr. Webster, "is probably to
rub, to rake, scrape, or scratch, as wild animals dig by
scratching."
I can _grub out_ a lesson in Latin or mathematics as well as the
best of them.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. I. p. 223.
GUARDING. "The custom of _guarding_ Freshmen," says a
correspondent from Dartmouth College, "is comparatively a late
one. Persons masked would go into another's room at night, and
oblige him to do anything they commanded him, as to get under his
bed, sit with his feet in a pail of water," &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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