ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROL COTT GROSS NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE
If you're a college-bound, ex-high-school senior, or have a son or daughter entering college this fall, here's a pop quiz to see if you understand the slanguage spoken on many college campuses.
Have your No. 2 pencil sharpened. And please answer true or false to the following statements:
* ``Cake'' courses are given by the culinary arts department.
* Only athletes take ``Rocks for Jocks.''
* Students who ``kick'' the final fail the course.
* Going ``shopping'' on the weekends can max out a Gold Card.
If you answered false to all of the above, you've got a perfect score. You've kicked the quiz.
Did you know that a cake course is an ``easy A'' taught by a ``duck,'' or that ``Rocks for Jocks,'' like ``Moons for Goons,'' is slang for an introductory geology or astrology course taken by nonscience students to fulfill core curriculum requirements?
And did you know that shopping is the college equivalent of scoping, or cruising for dates? If not, you should take a prep course in college lingo. Then when school starts this fall, you won't sound like a geek.
You'll need the course in college slanguage even if you talked the talk in high school, or knew what your kids were talking about by the time they hit 12th grade. You won't get advanced placement or college credit for any of this prior knowledge: High-school slang rarely makes the move to campus, even if the college is just a few miles away.
College slang can be witty and wild, but there's good news here for parents. According to Jesse Sheidlower, reference editor of the Random House Dictionary of American Slang by J.E. Lighter (1994), the language college students invent often has a more intellectual focus than high-school lingo.
``As a rule, college students concentrate more on their studies than high-school students do. So they develop an insider code to discuss the particular concerns of their course work,'' he says.
If slang is any indicator, maybe college isn't just a big four-year party.
Some linguistic scholars say that since the Middle Ages, the college campus has been the breeding ground for what often becomes influential jargon in the culture at large.
According to ``A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' by Eric Partridge (MacMillan, 1985), college slang is an ``outlaw form of speech,'' reflecting ``the authority defying spirit of student life.''
Not to worry, parents. Outlaw student linguists aren't roaming college campuses, according to Fred Rosen, a professor of journalism who formerly instructed at Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y. He says college slang is tame these days.
``We could use a little linguistic antiauthority!'' he says.
Rosen has a theory that slang is recycled every 20 years. He hears college kids using hippy slang that sounds like what he heard as an undergraduate at Hunter College in New York City.
But before parents decide to dust off old slang such as ``far out'' and ``groovy,'' remember Rosen said ``sounds like'' not ``is'' the language he heard 20 years ago. Seventies' slang, like your old bell bottoms, is dated, but not phrases such as, ``The Beatles were a trip!'' and ``The Blow Fish are all that!''
To add confusion, the same slang expression used right now in high schools as criticism are compliments at college. For example, ``computer geeks'' usually are looked down on in high schools. But at the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, editors at The Statesman, the campus newspaper, say ``computer geeks,'' ``computer cowboys'' and ``computer jocks'' are respected.
And so is a ``Net head,'' the guy who can hook you up with a ``cyberdate'' because he's usually shopping on the Internet instead of going to classes.
As for cutting class, today's students ``blow off,'' ``bag,'' ``ditch,'' ``dust'' or ``punt'' a bothersome 8 o'clock lab.
``Bailing'' isn't really cutting class. ``I bailed psych!'' means the student has signed in and ``bounced,'' or left the class, before it actually ended. But, if you bounce too often, you're liable to ``bomb,'' ``crash and burn'' or ``zoo'' the course.
On the other end of the curve, you can ``ace,'' ``crank,'' ``pump'' or ``kick'' a class, if you do well.
And depending on your linguistic talents, you just might invent some college speak. Psych majors often speak ``psychobabble,'' a term coined by Richard Rosen, author of the book of the same title (Atheneum, 1977).
More recently, Rosen, a comedy and mystery writer, developed the phrase ``Bull Crit,'' which is sometimes used by English majors and other Bull Critters who read book reviews, not the book itself, and then hold forth on borrowed opinions of the work.
Stephanie Dolgoff, a New York writer, invented ``Wall Wear'' to describe the trendy art posters tacked up on dorm room walls (and later torn down when tastes change) for an article in American Photo magazine.
For someone spending the fall semester in England, they'll want to know the following:
* You don't cut class, you ``bunk off.''
* You don't cram for a test, you ``swot up.'' And if you don't study, you'll be a ``dosser.''
Pantheon Books' ``Dictionary of Contemporary Slang'' by Tony Thorne (1991) says that swot, doss and bunk off are examples of the current popularization of slang that was invented by 19th-century university students.
Now, to determine if you are getting the hang of college slang: Define the term ``Nerd.''
If your answer is, ``A pre-professional student with a 4.0 cum who listens to The Dead,'' you've passed this course.
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: color graphic by STEVE STINSON STAFFby CNB