A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 6

Indulgent G.o.ds! exclaimed our _bloods_.

_The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 15.

BLOOD. At some of the Western colleges this word signifies excellent; as, a _blood_ recitation. A student who recites well is said to _make a blood_.

BLOODEE. In the Farmer's Weekly Museum, formerly printed at Walpole, N.H., appeared August 21, 1797, a poetic production, in which occurred these lines:--

Seniors about to take degrees, Not by their wits, but by _bloodees_.

In a note the word _bloodee_ was thus described: "A kind of cudgel worn, or rather borne, by the bloods of a certain college in New England, 2 feet 5 inches in length, and 1-7/8 inch in diameter, with a huge piece of lead at one end, emblematical of its owner. A pretty prop for clumsy travellers on Parna.s.sus."

b.l.o.o.d.y. Formerly a college term for daring, rowdy, impudent.

Arriving at Lord Bibo's study, They thought they'd be a little _b.l.o.o.d.y_; So, with a bold, presumptuous look, An honest pinch of snuff they took.

_Rebelliad_, p. 44.

They roar'd and bawl'd, and were so _b.l.o.o.d.y_, As to besiege Lord Bibo's study.

_Ibid._, p. 76.

BLOW. A merry frolic with drinking; a spree. A person intoxicated is said to be _blown_, and Mr. Halliwell, in his Dict. Arch. and Prov. Words, has _blowboll_, a drunkard.

This word was formerly used by students to designate their frolics and social gatherings; at present, it is not much heard, being supplanted by the more common words _spree_, _tight_, &c.

My fellow-students had been engaged at a _blow_ till the stagehorn had summoned them to depart.--_Harvard Register_, 1827-28, p. 172.

No soft adagio from the muse of _blows_, E'er roused indignant from serene repose.

_Ibid._, p. 233.

And, if no coming _blow_ his thoughts engage, Lights candle and cigar.

_Ibid._, p. 235.

The person who engages in a blow is also called a _blow_.

I could see, in the long vista of the past, the many hardened _blows_ who had rioted here around the festive board.--_Collegian_, p. 231.

BLUE. In several American colleges, a student who is very strict in observing the laws, and conscientious in performing his duties, is styled a _blue_. "Our real delvers, midnight students," says a correspondent from Williams College, "are called _blue_."

I wouldn't carry a novel into chapel to read, not out of any respect for some people's old-womanish twaddle about the sacredness of the place,--but because some of the _blues_ might see you.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 81.

Each jolly soul of them, save the _blues_, Were doffing their coats, vests, pants, and shoes.

_Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.

None ever knew a sober "_blue_"

In this "blood crowd" of ours.

_Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.

Lucian called him a _blue_, and fell back in his chair in a pouting fit.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 118.

To acquire popularity,... he must lose his money at bluff and euchre without a sigh, and d.a.m.n up hill and down the sober church-going man, as an out-and-out _blue_.--_The Parthenon, Union Coll._, 1851, p. 6.

BLUE-LIGHT. At the University of Vermont this term is used, writes a correspondent, to designate "a boy who sneaks about college, and reports to the Faculty the short-comings of his fellow-students. A _blue-light_ is occasionally found watching the door of a room where a party of jolly ones are roasting a turkey (which in justice belongs to the nearest farm-house), that he may go to the Faculty with the story, and tell them who the boys are."

BLUES. The name of a party which formerly existed at Dartmouth College. In The Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p. 117, 1842, is the following:--"The students here are divided into two parties,--the _Rowes_ and the _Blues_. The Rowes are very liberal in their notions; the _Blues_ more strict. The Rowes don't pretend to say anything worse of a fellow than to call him a Blue, and _vice versa_"

See INDIGO and ROWES.

BLUE-SKIN. This word was formerly in use at some American colleges, with the meaning now given to the word BLUE, q.v.

I, with my little colleague here, Forth issued from my cell, To see if we could overhear, Or make some _blue-skin_ tell.

_The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 22.

BOARD. The _boards_, or _college boards_, in the English universities, are long wooden tablets on which the names of the members of each college are inscribed, according to seniority, generally hung up in the b.u.t.tery.--_Gradus ad Cantab. Webster_.

I gave in my resignation this time without recall, and took my name off the _boards_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 291.

Similar to this was the list of students which was formerly kept at Harvard College, and probably at Yale. Judge Wingate, who graduated at the former inst.i.tution in 1759, writes as follows in reference to this subject:--"The Freshman Cla.s.s was, in my day at college, usually _placed_ (as it was termed) within six or nine months after their admission. The official notice of this was given by having their names written in a large German text, in a handsome style, and placed in a conspicuous part of the College b.u.t.tery, where the names of the four cla.s.ses of undergraduates were kept suspended until they left College. If a scholar was expelled, his name was taken from its place; or if he was degraded (which was considered the next highest punishment to expulsion), it was moved accordingly."--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 311.

BOGS. Among English Cantabs, a privy.--_Gradus ad Cantab._

BOHN. A translation; a pony. The volumes of Bohn's Cla.s.sical Library are in such general use among undergraduates in American colleges, that _Bohn_ has come to be a common name for a translation.

'Twas plenty of skin with a good deal of _Bohn_.

_Songs, Biennial Jubilee_, Yale Coll., 1855.

BOLT. An omission of a recitation or lecture. A correspondent from Union College gives the following account of it:--"In West College, where the Soph.o.m.ores and Freshmen congregate, when there was a famous orator expected, or any unusual spectacle to be witnessed in the city, we would call a 'cla.s.s meeting,' to consider upon the propriety of asking Professor ---- for a _bolt_.

We had our chairman, and the subject being debated, was generally decided in favor of the remission. A committee of good steady fellows were selected, who forthwith waited upon the Professor, and, after urging the matter, commonly returned with the welcome a.s.surance that we could have a _bolt_ from the next recitation."

One writer defines a _bolt_ in these words:--"The promiscuous stampede of a cla.s.s collectively. Caused generally by a few seconds' tardiness of the Professor, occasionally by finding the lock of the recitation-room door filled with shot."--_Soph.o.m.ore Independent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.

The quiet routine of college life had remained for some days undisturbed, even by a single _bolt_.--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol.

II. p. 192.

BOLT. At Union College, to be absent from a recitation, on the conditions related under the noun BOLT. Followed by _from_. At Williams College, the word is applied with a different signification. A correspondent writes: "We sometimes _bolt_ from a recitation before the Professor arrives, and the term most strikingly suggests the derivation, as our movements in the case would somewhat resemble a 'streak of lightning,'--a thunder-_bolt_."

BOLTER. At Union College, one who _bolts_ from a recitation.