College Slang.

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 is there which so exactly expresses the idea of hard, prolonged study as the common college word, "grinding"? But this expressive word is coming to be used so commonly and indiscriminatingly, being applied by some to every degree of application in studying, that it is in danger of losing all its force.

Hard students, especially those who spend almost all of their time on matter which pertains entirely to the courses they have in hand, are dubbed at all colleges either "grinds," "digs," or "grubs," and to be called such is not unusually considered a mark of flattery. The expressions for a bad recitation very at different colleges; "fizzle," "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.

The gentle lady who pretends to make our beds, and who is supposed to sweep snd dust our rooms, has ever here at Harvard been honored by the sobriaquet of "goodey," a contraction of good wife, some say. At some colleges she is called a "sweep," at Cambridge, Eng., a "bed-maker," at Oxford, a "gyp," and at Bowdoin we believe, she goes by the name of "end-woman," because the entries are in the ends of the buildings.

It 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.