A Collection of College Words and Customs. Benjamin Homer Hall
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.
2. A correspondent from the same college says: "If a student is unable to answer a question in the class, and declares himself unprepared, he also is a 'bolter.'"
BONFIRE. The making of bonfires, by students, is not an unfrequent occurrence at many of our colleges, and is usually a demonstration of dissatisfaction, or is done merely for the sake of the excitement. It is accounted a high offence, and at Harvard College is prohibited by the following law:—"In case of a bonfire, or unauthorized fireworks or illumination, any students crying fire, sounding an alarm, leaving their rooms, shouting or clapping from the windows, going to the fire or being seen at it, going into the college yard, or assembling on account of such bonfire, shall be deemed aiding and abetting such disorder, and punished accordingly."—Laws, 1848, Bonfires.
A correspondent from Bowdoin College writes: "Bonfires occur regularly twice a year; one on the night preceding the annual State Fast, and the other is built by the Freshmen on the night following the yearly examination. A pole some sixty or seventy feet long is raised, around which brush and tar are heaped to a great height. The construction of the pile occupies from four to five hours."
Not ye, whom midnight cry ne'er urged to run
In search of fire, when fire there had been none;
Unless, perchance, some pump or hay-mound threw
Its bonfire lustre o'er a jolly crew. Harvard Register, p. 233.
BOOK-KEEPER. At Harvard College, students are allowed to go out of town on Saturday, after the exercises, but are required, if not at evening prayers, to enter their names before 10 P.m. with one of the officers appointed for that purpose. Students were formerly required to report themselves before 8 P.m., in winter, and 9, in summer, and the person who registered the names was a member of the Freshman Class, and was called the book-keeper.
I strode over the bridge, with a rapidity which grew with my vexation, my distaste for wind, cold, and wet, and my anxiety to reach my goal ere the hour appointed should expire, and the book-keeper's light should disappear from his window; "For while his light holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."—Collegian, p. 225.
See FRESHMAN, COLLEGE.
BOOK-WORK. Among students at Cambridge, Eng., all mathematics that can be learned verbatim from books—all that are not problems.—Bristed.
He made a good fight of it, and … beat the Trinity man a little on the book-work.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 96.
The men are continually writing out book-work, either at home or in their tutor's rooms.—Ibid., p. 149.
BOOT-FOX. This name was at a former period given, in the German universities, to a fox, or a student in his first half-year, from the fact of his being required to black the boots of his more advanced comrades.
BOOTLICK. To fawn upon; to court favor.
Scorns the acquaintance of those he deems beneath him; refuses to bootlick men for their votes.—The Parthenon, Union Coll., Vol. I. p. 6.
The "Wooden Spoon" exhibition passed off without any such hubbub, except where the pieces were of such a character as to offend the delicacy and modesty of some of those crouching, fawning, bootlicking hypocrites.—The Gallinipper, Dec. 1849.
BOOTLICKER. A student who seeks or gains favor from a teacher by flattery or officious civilities; one who curries favor. A correspondent from Union College writes: "As you watch the students more closely, you will perhaps find some of them particularly officious towards your teacher, and very apt to linger after recitation to get a clearer knowledge of some passage. They are Bootlicks, and that is known as Bootlicking; a reproach, I am sorry to say, too indiscriminately applied." At Yale, and other colleges, a tutor or any other officer who informs against the students, or acts as a spy upon their conduct, is also called a bootlick.
Three or four bootlickers rise.—Yale Banger, Oct. 1848.
The rites of Wooden Spoons we next recite,
When bootlick hypocrites upraised their might. Ibid., Nov. 1849.
Then he arose, and offered himself as a "bootlick" to the Faculty.—Yale Battery, Feb. 14, 1850.
BOOTS. At the College of South Carolina it is customary to present the most unpopular member of a class with a pair of handsome red-topped boots, on which is inscribed the word BEAUTY. They were formerly given to the ugliest person, whence the inscription.
BORE. A tiresome person or unwelcome visitor, who makes himself obnoxious by his disagreeable manners, or by a repetition of visits.—Bartlett.
A person or thing that wearies by iteration.—Webster.
Although the use of this word is very general, yet it is so peculiarly applicable to the many annoyances to which a collegian is subjected, that it has come by adoption to be, to a certain extent, a student term. One writer classes under this title "text-books generally; the Professor who marks slight mistakes; the familiar young man who calls continually, and when he finds the door fastened demonstrates his verdant curiosity by revealing an inquisitive countenance through the ventilator."—Sophomore Independent, Union College, Nov. 1854.
In college parlance, prayers, when the morning is cold or rainy, are a bore; a hard lesson is a bore; a dull lecture or lecturer is a bore; and, par excellence, an unwelcome visitor is a bore of bores. This latter personage is well described in the following lines:—
"Next comes the bore, with visage sad and pale,
And tortures you with some lugubrious tale;
Relates stale jokes collected near and far,
And in return expects a choice cigar;
Your brandy-punch he calls the merest sham,
Yet does not scruple to partake a dram. His prying eyes your secret nooks explore; No place is sacred to the college bore. Not e'en the letter filled with Helen's praise, Escapes the sight of his unhallowed gaze; Ere one short hour its silent course has flown, Your Helen's charms to half the class are known. Your books he takes, nor deigns your leave to ask, Such forms to him appear a useless task. When themes unfinished stare you in the face, Then enters one of this accursed race. Though like the Angel bidding John to write, Frail———form uprises to thy sight, His stupid stories chase your thoughts away, And drive you mad with his unwelcome stay. When he, departing, creaks the closing door, You raise the Grecian chorus, [Greek: kikkabau]."[02] MS. Poem, F.E. Felton, Harv. Coll.
BOS. At the University of Virginia, the desserts which the students, according to the statutes of college, are allowed twice per week, are respectively called the Senior and Junior Bos.
BOSH. Nonsense, trash, [Greek: phluaria]. An English Cantab's expression.—Bristed.
But Spriggins's peculiar forte is that kind of talk which some people irreverently call "bosh."—Yale Lit. Mag., Vol. XX. p. 259.
BOSKY. In the cant of the Oxonians, being tipsy.—Grose.
Now when he comes home fuddled, alias Bosky, I shall not be so unmannerly as to say his Lordship ever gets drunk.—The Sizar, cited in Gradus ad Cantab., pp. 20, 21.
BOWEL. At Harvard College, a student in common parlance will express his destitution or poverty by saying, "I have not a bowel." The use of the word with this signification has arisen, probably, from a jocular reference to a quaint Scriptural expression.
BRACKET.