Collins Unbound

Have you ever wondered where some of the phrases you use every day come from? Probably not, since you use them every day. But I’m here to tell you that some of those very phrases and slang words have been around since the 1910s! Either that or they came back from the dead, like skinny jeans and platform shoes.

See, I found an old article from the January 8, 1919 edition of the Trail that was titled “College Slang,” and old slang is one of my favorite things to find (and use). So, if you ever find yourself in need of some strange new words to add to your vernacular, take a look at these, and see if any manage to trip your trigger.

A textbook was known as anything from a “trot” to a “pony” to a “bicycle.” If you’re studying a textbook, you’re going for a “ride.” If you study a lot, you’re a “jockey.” If you have a lot of textbooks on a shelf, you can call it a “stable,” and if you have a bunch of study buddies, you can say you’re all going to the “racecourse.” Then you can confuse people because they might think you’re going to the Tacoma Speedway in the rain and for no particular reason when really, you’re just going to study.

If you get a perfect score on a test, it’s a “ten strike.” On the other hand, if you get a zero (which I hope no one does), it’s a “zip” or a “bust.” If you do just well enough to pass, then you “slide through,” which is still a pretty common phrase. If you’re preparing for a test, then you’re “loading” for it. A class failure is a “flunk,” which I’m sure you’ve never heard before, and “bull” is usually (and I quote): “to recite when unprepared, usually stupidly, and at length.”

If you ever need a new word to call your female classmates, you could call them “hens” or “quail,” or even “calico.” If you’re escorting a particular lady friend back to her room, you could say you’re “taking calic to the hen coop.” Granted, that was a term used when there was a specific women’s dormitory, but I suppose you could still adapt it to today.

So remember, if you ever find yourself “cutting” a class…there were students nearly 100 years ago who were doing the exact same thing, with the exact same word, too.

By Morgan Ford

The structure of a yearbook, it seems, has changed little in past decades. There is a sports section, and club sections, and there are group photos of the classes, and more often than not the seniors (be they high school or college) will get their own headshot pages. Even the venerable blank autograph page has been around since at least the 1920s. Clearly, there is a system to making yearbooks, and not only that, it’s one that works.

But there is one thing that you might not expect to have always been a part of that formula, and perhaps appropriately one that you likely spend the least time looking at: in the back of the book, there is always and inevitably the list of advertisements.

There is something very modern about the idea of advertisements slowly creeping their way into every unfilled space in our lives, which is perhaps why I had always assumed that their presence in a yearbook, ostensibly a fairly non-commercial affair, was a recent invention. As it turns out, this was a very false assumption. Every copy of the Puget Sound Tamanawas that we have here in the Archives & Special Collections, going all the way back to 1913, has a full list of ads in the back.

So, while that’s one perfectly good reason to believe in the downfall of modern society thwarted, what this means for us is that we now have a fantastic insight into what kind of advertising businesses thought would attract college students in the decades through history.

You can find all of them here in the Archives & Special Collections.

By Zebediah Howell

“In a country where everyone else is blind, the man who can see is king. And in a lumber country where only one mill can saw straight boards, the major city is born.”

William C. Speidel, Jr. tells a satirical history of Seattle in You STILL Can’t Eat Mt. Rainier, a novel illustrated by Bob Cram and published in 1961. He writes as a local of the city, knowledgeable of the landscape and cultures. This book begins with anecdotes about the city’s founding fathers, native neighbors, “famous fights,” and big corporations. Part II describes the city’s must-see spots and entertainment value, and Part III lists “mouth-watering” eateries throughout the “Queen City” of the Pacific Northwest. Printed on bright yellow paper and bound in between vintage city maps, Speidel’s comic guide book is worth a glance just for its quirky cartoon illustrations.

“An interpretation of the facts that may or may not be approved by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce…

Name: “Queen City” of the Pacific Northwest

Measurements: (In quarter miles). Bust 30, (West Point-Laurelhurst)… Waist 10 (Yesler Way)… Hips 28 (Alki-Seward Park)… Height 64 (north-south city limits).

Age: 110 years… or 108 years… or 92 years. (Pioneer founders landed in 1851… platted in 1853… incorporated in 1865… disincorporated in 1867… reincorporated in 1869).”

By Maya Steinborn