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Good Sam

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General Information:

         Verbal Lore, Slang

         Language: English

         Country of Origin: United States

         Informant: LG

         Date Collected: 11/4/2021

         Location Collected: Dorm Room over a FaceTime Call

Informant Data: LG is a ’23 from Maui, Hawaii. She is 20 years old, and a Government and Geography double major. She is a member of the equestrian team.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: Good sam is used when someone is under the influence to the point that medical assistance is required. It is rarely used by people on campus, as people rarely drink to the point where they need to go to the hospital. All of campus knows this word.

Cultural Context: Good sam is a program used by Dartmouth to encourage safety. If you good sam someone you are exempt from getting into any trouble for underage drinking. Dartmouth students often use this in a joking manner, saying things such as “slow down we don’t want to have to good sam you”. Most students learn this early on during their freshman year, as it is a matter of safety stressed by the college. It has a negative connotation, and can often be a source of shame if you are “good sam’ed”.

Item: Good Sam: To call 911 and request medical assistance for someone who has had too much to drink or is otherwise incapacitated. Example: “John had too much to drink last night so we had to good sam him”.

Associated File: Notable quotes

“Good sam means to call the hospital for someone who has had too much to drink at a party or a night out”.

“Yeah the term is often used when someone is drinking a lot and we want to tell them to slow down, saying something like ‘don’t want to have to good sam you'”.

Informant’s Comments: LG said she has luckily never had to use this word herself on campus.

Collector’s Comments: I have never had any experience with using good sam directly, but friends of mine have. It is certainly a negative word, and people talk about others getting good sam’ed and spread rumors about it.

Collector’s Name: Ben Ryan

Need ___

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General Information:

         Verbal Lore, Slang

         Language: English

         Country of Origin: United States

         Informant: CR ’23

         Date Collected: 11/4/2021

         Location Collected: New Hamp Dorm Room

Informant Data: CR is a ’23 from Orinda, California. He is 20 years old, and a philosophy and environmental science double major. On campus he plays club soccer.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: The phrase “need ___” is used when asking people to do an activity with you. It is most frequently used in group chats, often in large group chats for clubs or greek organizations. Common uses of “need” are when people want to play pong, get a meal, or go somewhere off campus. It is often texted out, and then people will respond in a specific manner to indicate that they are interested.

Cultural Context: Dartmouth students have a unique way of talking, and like to shorten and simplify words. The phrase “need” is a simple, efficient way of asking people to do something and saying how many people are needed. This phrase is especially useful for pong, a game that is fairly unique to Dartmouth. It has a fairly neutral connotation.

Item: “Need ___”: Need is a way to express that you want people to do something with you, so you say need followed by the number of people needed and the activity you want to do. Example: “Need 3 for pong”

Associated File: Notable quotes

“Need is an easy text to send when you need a certain number of people to do something with you.”

“I mostly use ‘need’ when I want to play pong, and I usually text out in our fraternity group chat, as that is where I usually get the quickest responses.”

Informant’s Comments:  CR said he uses this word mostly for pong, although he mentioned that his freshman floor group chat used it a lot for meals and other activities. He also started using it more frequently once joining a fraternity.

Collector’s Comments: I started using this word a lot more once I joined a greek organization. It is an easy way to communicate to a large group of people and helps me find people to do activities with.

Collector’s Name: Ben Ryan

NARP

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General Information:

         Verbal Lore, Slang

         Language: English

         Country of Origin: United States

         Informant: JC ’24

         Date Collected: 11/2/2021

         Location Collected: First Floor Baker Library

Informant Data: JC is a ’24 at Dartmouth College, and is a 21 year old male from Singapore. He is a sophomore at Dartmouth college, and is not an athlete. He is a Economics major.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: I collected this information and word from Jihwan on the first floor of Baker library. NARP is used to delineate a social divide on campus between athletes and non-athletes. It is often a key piece of information used to describe someone. It can cause divides in social settings such as greek life, as athletes tend to belong to certain fraternities and sororities and narps belong mostly to others.It can be used with both a negative or positive connotation, depending on the situation. Some people are very proud to be narps, while occasionally athletes look down on narps and use the word in a mean way.

Cultural Context: Dartmouth students often shorten words or phrases to make them easier to remember and create a more unique culture. Non-athlete is an awkward way to refer to someone, so the word NARP was created to make things easier. Given the unusually high percentage of Dartmouth students that are athletes, this term is useful when talking about people on campus.

Item: NARP (Non-Athletic Regular Person): Example: “Joe used to play on the soccer team but he quit, so now he is a narp.”

Associated File:

“NARP stands for non-athletic regular person, so its like anyone who’s not an athlete.”

“I learned it freshman year because a couple guys on my floor were athletes, and some older guys referred to other people on our floor using this word”.

Informant’s Comments: JC said he was asked if he was a narp fairly frequently during his first few weeks at Dartmouth. He also noted that the word fosters a sense of division between athletes and non-athletes that can be seen in various social situations.

Collector’s Comments: This term was created as an easy way to refer to non-athletes. It is an abbreviation and thus is more efficient and easy to remember. I don’t frequently use this word, but when I do I use the word to describe individuals or friend groups.

Collector’s Name: Ben Ryan