A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 42

GROATS. At the English universities, "nine _groats_" says Grose, in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, "are deposited in the hands of an academic officer by every person standing for a degree, which, if the depositor obtains with honor, are returned to him."

_To save his groats_; to come off handsomely.--_Gradus ad Cantab._

GROUP. A crowd or throng; a number collected without any regular form or arrangement. At Harvard College, students are not allowed to a.s.semble 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., Ma.s.s._, 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.sage 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, sc.r.a.pe, 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.

GULF. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., one who obtains the degree of B.A., but has not his name inserted in the Calendar, is said to be in the _gulf_.

He now begins to ... be anxious about ... that cla.s.sical acquaintance who is in danger of the _gulf_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 95.

Some ten or fifteen men just on the line, not bad enough to be plucked or good enough to be placed, are put into the "_gulf_," as it is popularly called (the Examiners' phrase is "Degrees allowed"), and have their degrees given them, but are not printed in the Calendar.--_Ibid._, p. 205.

GULFING. In the University of Cambridge, England, "those candidates for B.A. who, but for sickness or some other sufficient cause, might have obtained an honor, have their degree given them without examination, and thus avoid having their names inserted in the lists. This is called _Gulfing_." A degree taken in this manner is called "an aegrotat Degree."--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. pp.

60, 105.

I discovered that my name was nowhere to be found,--that I was _Gulfed_.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 97.

GUM. A trick; a deception. In use at Dartmouth College.

_Gum_ is another word they have here. It means something like chaw. To say, "It's all a _gum_," or "a regular chaw," is the same thing.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.

GUM. At the University of Vermont, to cheat in recitation by using _ponies_, _interliners_, &c.; e.g. "he _gummed_ in geometry."

2. To cheat; to deceive. Not confined to college.

He was speaking of the "moon hoax" which "_gummed_" so many learned philosophers.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p. 189.

GUMMATION. A trick; raillery.

Our reception to college ground was by no means the most hospitable, considering our unacquaintance with the manners of the place, for, as poor "Fresh," we soon found ourselves subject to all manner of sly tricks and "_gummations_" from our predecessors, the Sophs.--_A Tour through College_, Boston, 1832, p. 13.

GYP. A cant term for a servant at Cambridge, England, at _scout_ is used at Oxford. Said to be a sportive application of [Greek: gyps], a vulture.--_Smart_.

The word _Gyp_ very properly characterizes them.--_Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 56.

And many a yawning _gyp_ comes slipshod in, To wake his master ere the bells begin.

_The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.

The Freshman, when once safe through his examination, is first inducted into his rooms by a _gyp_, usually recommended to him by his tutor. The gyp (from [Greek: gyps], vulture, evidently a nickname at first, but now the only name applied to this cla.s.s of persons) is a college servant, who attends upon a number of students, sometimes as many as twenty, calls them in the morning, brushes their clothes, carries for them parcels and the queerly twisted notes they are continually writing to one another, waits at their parties, and so on. Cleaning their boots is not in his branch of the profession; there is a regular brigade of college s...o...b..acks.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.

14.

It is sometimes spelled _Jip_, though probably by mistake.

My _Jip_ brought one in this morning; faith! and told me I was focussed.--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p. 1085.

_H_.

HALF-LESSON. In some American colleges on certain occasions the students are required to learn only one half of the amount of an ordinary lesson.

They promote it [the value of distinctions conferred by the students on one another] by formally acknowledging the existence of the larger debating societies in such acts as giving "_half-lessons_" for the morning after the Wednesday night debates.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 386.

HALF-YEAR. In the German universities, a collegiate term is called a _half-year_.

The annual courses of instruction are divided into summer and winter _half-years_.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. Ed., pp. 34, 35.

HALL. A college or large edifice belonging to a collegiate inst.i.tution.--_Webster_.

2. A collegiate body in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

In the former inst.i.tution a hall differs from a college, in that halls are not incorporated; consequently, whatever estate or other property they possess is held in trust by the University. In the latter, colleges and halls are synonymous.--_Cam. and Oxf.

Calendars_.