A fifth-year senior? That term is so 2007. These days, college students just refer to that extra year of school as taking a victory lap. Grant shares this and other examples of campus slang collected by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill professor Connie Eble. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Victory Lap”
Once or twice a year, I get a list of slang from Connie Ebley, who is in the English department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And she sent me another one. This is good stuff. She collects these words from her students. The list doesn’t change all that much from year to year, which is kind of surprising. The best slang tends to be the best slang. It just lasts and lasts.
But there were a few terms on here that, while they might not be particularly new, I thought were worth calling attention to. One of my favorites is to call the fifth year that you are enrolled at university your victory lap. Is that what I did? Okay, I did not know that. Victory lap. That’s terrific. You’re not an older student. It’s your victory lap. You’re winning.
And another one that’s really interesting, and I’m not surprised to see it here because I’ve heard it come up in other speech, more Americans are using the word ginger to describe people with red hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is a classic British term that we’ve almost never used until the Harry Potter books and the Harry Potter movies.
Oh, sure.
And I think those have the main responsibility for making it ginger common now, or at least common enough to remark upon in American English.
The Harry Potter generation is entering college now, right?
Yeah, I’m far past college age, so if you are at university or in college, give us a call, 877-929-9673. Tell us what the slang is on your campus. You can send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.
