Joe from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, asks about pony, the term he and his fellow maritime academy students used to mean “a practice test” or “a copy of a previous test” to help them crib for an exam. Among 19th-century British students, the slang term pony meant “a translation or summary used as a study shortcut,” also known as a horse or trot. Linguist Connie Eble notes that the same concept has been modernized in North Carolina college slang as automobile and bicycle—something that, in other words, allows a student to coast through an exam. A listener who graduated from a merchant marine engineering school in the early 1980s emailed to say he remembers that when he was a student, a pony was “a copy of a test from previous classes,” and savvy instructors sometimes changed tiny details from year to year to thwart cheaters. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Pony” as a Study Aid: From 19th-Century British Translations to Maritime Academy Old Tests”
Hello.
You have A Way with Words.
Hi.
I’m Joe, and I’m calling from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Hi, Joe.
Welcome to the program.
What’s up?
Hey.
I had a question for you guys about a word that we used in college, And this is something that I’ve found…
I went to maritime college, so studying to to work on ships when you graduate.
It’s a word that I think is only used at maritime colleges.
I’m not sure about that.
But the word is pony.
And we use pony to describe a practice test or if you had, like, an old copy of a test from a year prior, you’d say, oh, did you study the pony?
Did you get a copy of the pony?
And I’ve never heard of anyone from, like, a normal college using this word, but everyone from from the maritime colleges knows and uses this word.
That’s so interesting.
So we’re talking about p o n y, like the horse.
Yeah.
I don’t even know how it’s spelled, honestly.
I don’t know if it’s n I e or n y.
I don’t know.
And so It was a…
It’s a verbal word.
You know?
Is that…
So the Maritime Academy, is that the only place that you encountered it in your schooling?
Yes.
So I went to the US Merchant Marine Academy, but there’s actually seven maritime academies in America where you go and you graduate with a coast guard license and a and a bachelor’s degree after four years.
But everyone in the in the industry kinda knows and uses the word.
Mhmm.
I’ve never heard it used anywhere else.
And when I reference it to, like, anyone who’s not, you know, a maritime person, they look at you like you’re crazy.
Well, rest easy, Joe, because I know we can answer this one.
Yeah.
This is so interesting because, Joe, this is a real old student slang sense of the word pony, p o n y, but it’s much older and broader than the US maritime academies.
It turns out that it’s as old as the nineteenth century in British school slang.
A pony was a literal translation or a summary of a text that was used as a shortcut or or a study aid, you know, something that you could use to to crib.
And sometimes these were called ponies.
Sometimes they were called a horse or a trot.
And the idea in all of those cases appears to be essentially that instead of doing the intellectual walking yourself, you’re riding on this thing that’s taking you there and and making it easy.
So instead of plotting, you’re racing around the track at high speed.
No.
That’s so funny because we would ask, hey.
Did you study?
And some people would just go, now I’m…
I do think I’m just gonna ride the pony on this one.
Oh, nice.
Hopefully, the pony hit.
Nice.
And, Martha, did you see that the linguist and lexicographer Connie Ebole who recorded college slang for decades in North Carolina found it being called automobiles.
Modernized for the modern age to…
With exactly the same concept.
It’s like this crib sheet.
Sometimes it’s pure out cheating where you’ve got a paper up your sleeve and sometimes it’s just you have the answers or the exam in advance.
Yeah.
Exactly.
An automobile or a bicycle.
Bicycle.
Yeah.
That’s the other one.
So two hundred years back to the eighteen twenties at least.
I’ve got one more very cool thing for you that you’re gonna appreciate, Joe.
About five years ago…
I’m looking through our email here.
About five years ago, we got an email from a guy named Rob Kright, and he says he graduated from a merchant marine engineering school in the early nineteen eighties.
And he says, to us, a pony was a copy of the test given to previous classes.
And so they use the word pony where he went to school.
He doesn’t say which school, but he also adds that on many Yeah.
On many occasions, the instructor knew there was a pony out there.
So he would throw in little gremlins in the test to trick unwary students.
Changing one number.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you did you find that as well?
Yes.
They would.
They would they would have very similar questions, but they would change little details.
So you…
But if, you know, if you had the pony, you knew what the test was gonna look like, and that was the important thing.
But, Joe, that’s what we know about pony.
A long…
Two hundred years of history, eighteen twenties at least.
Used to be broader now, more specific, but it’s still obviously got a legacy in the merchant the merchant maritime schooling.
Yeah.
I wonder if they still use it over in The UK or not.
Good question.
Well, our British listeners our British listeners will let us know.
Thank you so much for sharing with us.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks for answering that.
It’s really interesting.
Alright.
You take care now.
Bye bye.
Alright.
Bye.
Bye, Joe.
You know, you think a term is this idle, little, flimsy thing that is just used in passing.
But when you really look into it, so often, it’s got a deeper history that connects to other parts of of history and culture and other societies.
And we love talking about that kind of language here on the show.
Bring yours to us.
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