The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Collection of College Words and Customs
by Benjamin Homer Hall

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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 gath