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Blitz (Nathan Zhang)

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Title: Blitz

General Information:

         Verbal Lore: Slang

         Language: English

         Country of Origin: United States

         Informant: SW ’22

         Date Collected: 11/04/21

         Location Collected: First Floor Baker-Berry Library

Informant Data: 

SW ’22 is a 21-year-old female from Houston, Texas. She is a member of the Dartmouth Class of 2022, and she is majoring in Linguistics modified with Economics and minoring in French. Outside of the classroom, SW ’22 is involved with the Sugarplum dance group, Women in Business, Women in Student Business, Social Impact Nonprofit Consulting, and Kappa Kappa Gamma. She plans to work in the consulting industry upon graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: SW ’22 was studying in the Baker-Berry Library when she shared this piece of verbal lore with me. She first learned the term as a first-year student during First-Year Trips. Trips is an orientation experience where incoming first-year students spend a few days in the outdoors with 6-8 other first-year students and two upperclassmen mentors. On her trip, SW ’22 learned about the verbal slang ‘Blitz’ when her two upperclassmen mentors did an activity with her and the other first-year students on her trip where they specifically listed off a number of Dartmouth slang terms and defined them. Blitz was one of those words, and SW ’22 and the other 6-8 first-year students learned how to perform this piece of folklore. This piece of verbal slang is performed reguarly and used by all students at Dartmouth.
  • Cultural Context: Here, the relevant cultural context is that the informant is a student at Dartmouth College. This piece of folklore is known to and used by all Dartmouth students and is a type of verbal slang. It is commonly used casually between students when referring to emails that are sent from one Dartmouth email account to another Dartmouth account – or accounts. It is specifically used in reference to emails sent from Dartmouth clubs or organizations to large groups of students, or in reference to emails sent in academic settings. Blitz can have both a positive and negative connotation, depending mostly on the situation. For example, for a first-year student, a campus-wide email blitz sent by a club that they may be interested in would be exciting, and thus blitz would have a positive connotation. That same campus-wide blitz, however, could be found as annoying to an upperclassmen student who knows they are not interested in the club, and thus blitz would have a negative connotation.

Item: 

Blitz: Short for “Blitz Web Access”. Blitz refers to an email sent from one Dartmouth account to another. For example, used in a sentence: “Did you get that campus-wide blitz about COVID restrictions?”

Associated File: 

“A word I learned while on trips was ‘Blitz’. Blitz is basically a Dartmouth email sent between two Dartmouth accounts. I learned it when my trip leaders sat down with me and my other tripees and explained a bunch of different Dartmouth slang words to us. This term is used by everyone at Dartmouth, and it came to be because it’s short for ‘Blitz Web Access’.”

Informant’s Comments: 

Dartmouth likes to be niche about a lot of things, and they have their own lingo. Blitz is just one of those words.

Collector’s Comments: 

Blitz is a piece of Dartmouth slang that is known to and used by everyone. There may be some Dartmouth students that do not know that it is short for ‘Blitz Web Access’.

In her transcript, SW ’22 refers to the terms ‘trip leaders’ and ‘tripees’. ‘Trip leaders’ references the upperclassmen mentors on first-year trips, and ‘tripees’ refers to the other incoming first-year students who are on someone’s trip.

Collector’s Name: Nathan Zhang

Tags / Keywords: FA21, FA21-Grp-03, Dartmouth, Verbal Lore, Slang, Students, Email, Dartmouth Clubs

SPEW – Listserv

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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ITEM:

  • Verbal Folklore – Tradition
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: United States
  • Informant: Robert Barret Noone
  • Date Collected: 11/10/19

INFORMANT DATA:

  • Robert Barret Noone is an active member of three years Dartmouth Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Team, known by its name, Pain Train. He is a member of the class of 2021 and an Engineering major. He started playing frisbee in a local league the summer before college. Born on October 7, 1998, he is from Philadelphia, PA. His favorite frisbee throwing technique is the IO flick.

CONTEXTUAL DATA:

  • Cultural Context: Many freshmen sign up for the frisbee email listserv, known as SPEW, during freshman fall at the activities fair and then remain on the list throughout the entirety of their Dartmouth career. Used for logistics and planning as well as distribution of team folklore, SPEW stands for Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare. This was a name from that the team adopted from the movie Harry Potter many years ago, when Harry Potter had a much larger presence and influence on the program. SPEW is an email distribution list used as a means of communication for the program. Since it is technically not a college regulated listserv, students that do not want to be on the email chain have a hard time getting off of it since they are not as familiar with it. SPEW is used throughout the school year. Peak usage of SPEW usually occurs at the beginning of the fall, to communicate information about tryout and open practices, near big weekends in the fall and spring, leading up to an event called HPP, and in the winter, when Frisbee Formal asks and responses are sent out to the entire distribution list. The title of SPEW OVERLORD is passed down at banquet when the reigning OVERLORD bequests their title to an underclassmen who they feel will preserve the integrity of the email server.

 

  • Social Context: This ritual was documented in a one-on-one interview in Novack. This item of folklore fosters community within the program because it serves as a means of communication among players. Throughout the year, SPEW also serves as a tool for community members to meet each other; formal invites are sent and responded to, spring break and Collis dates are organized as planned, and much more is accomplished all through this means.

ITEM: 

  • SPEW – Listserv

Recording:

TRANSCRIPT: 

  • “So SPEW is the email listserv that the Ultimate Frisbee Program uses. It’s used for a variety of things, sometimes for program-wide logistics or planning events but a lot of the time it’s people screwing around and being weird. It’s used a lot in conjunction with certain events like every term we have HPP which stands for Harry Potter Party. And leading up to it [HPP] some upperclassmen have email accounts with the names of various Harry Potter characters and they send out emails mainly intended to confuse the freshmen I think, you know just explaining, like a weird banter back and forth, slowly revealing little pieces of the event, and eventually saying like ‘this is what you need to do.’ It’s fun, I think. But, that also lines up a lot with when people try to get off of SPEW. I don’t know the details behind it but I think it’s not like a formal listserv – it’s something weirder that you can’t just unsubscribe from. So usually when there’s these rapid fire emails from Harry Potter characters you get people who aren’t involved in the program asking to get off the listserv. Usually like one person sends an email saying “Hey, can you please take me off this email list?” and there’s a cascade of six or seven more people saying “yeah, me too.” I think that’s always really funny especially when someone on the program will send out saying “Yeah, please text this number for inquiries and usually just gives someone’s random number. Oliver Chartock’s number was given last year at some point and he got like ten different texts from people asking to get off the listserv even though he doesn’t have the power to do that. SPEW overlord is a position that is bequested down through the frisbee program, and that’s the person who is technically in charge of SPEW and they usually send out some wierd or passive aggressive emails about people being weird. They usually sign their emails with “SPEW OVERLORD.” They’re usually the person that doesn’t – like when there are a bunch of requests to get off the listserv – they usually respond with like “hahaha you’re trapped forever!” It’s passed down from people who kinda have that troll-y mindset. They pass it down to someone they think is going to use it and have fun with it.”

 INFORMANT’S COMMENTS:

  • “Mainly intended to confuse the freshmen”

COLLECTOR’S COMMENTS: 

  • The use of SPEW as Verbal Folklore within the Ultimate Frisbee Community seems to be declining, as other means of communication, such as GroupMe, on Dartmouth Campus are increasing in popularity. If SPEW usage continues to decline, the traditions associated with it may fade away.

COLLECTOR’S NAME: 

  • Luke Cuomo and Annett Gawerc

The Legend of Tonald Drump

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Title: The Legend of Tonald Drump

Informant Info: Charles Jang is an Executive Editor Emeritus and former Office Manager of The Dartmouth Review.  He is a ’16 from Fort Worth, TX. He was interviewed on May 24, 2016 at the Review office in Hanover, NH.

Type of Lore: Verbal, Legend

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: The legend refers to a former President and member of the Review and some of his deeds and exploits during his time within the organization. It is considered and presented as an entertaining story.

Transcript:

I was told not to use real names, so we will call him “Tonald Drump.” So Tonald was a real, real character, that one. I believe another staffer and I looked at the Wikipedia article for sociopathy, and it turns out he fulfilled like four of the five main characteristics. For one, he embezzled from the Review, just so he could pay for his checked baggage on Canada Air. For another one, he bought the crappiest furniture possible, so within about 6 months they started breaking down, chairs (not these chairs, these are nice), but yeah there’s one right behind my interviewer there, they started breaking down. A coffee table, which broke when another staff member accidentally kicked it. Let’s see, what other stuff is there?  I’m blanking at the moment. He worked at a firm, which I am told not to name, where he had to get as part of an assignment, information from this lady who had just come back from maternity leave, and of course she’s like “Well, Tonald Drump, I can’t help you right now, I have to get caught up on the work that I actually have to do.” And of course, Tonald Drump does not take “no” for an answer. I believe one of his plans is to take over a small African nation and rule it as a dictator someday. And so he keeps pestering her by email, and she says cut it out, I have work to do. And then he finds a way through outlook to send an email every 15 minutes, and you know what he does when she storms up to him and says please stop doing this, he sets the interval to 5 minutes. I don’t think he got a job there after his internship was up.  Just a hunch. He’s a real character, that one.

Collector’s Comments: This legend serves as a prime example of some of the unique personalities that find themselves working for the Review.  The entertainment value of this legend comes from hearing these stories recounted in the presence of staffers who knew the individual in this legend personally. It is also entertaining having these legends introduced to new staffers. It is unknown whether or not some of his exploits have been exaggerated.

Technology and Email

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Title: Technology and Email

Informant Info: Mene Ukueberuwa is an Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Dartmouth Review. He is a ’16 (formerly ’14) from Princeton, NJ. He was interviewed on May 12, 2016 at the Collis Center in Hanover, NH.

Type of Lore: Verbal, Joke

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context:  Technology and in particular jokes about Jeff Hart’s email have become a part of the Review. It has become somewhat of a joke for Reviewers to refer to themselves as “vigilantly crusading against technology since 1980.” It is poking fun at how conservatives are often regarded as old-fashioned and against progress, making light of the legendary figure of Jeff Hart as well.

Transcript:

Well we’ve had some big colorful characters like I mentioned. One of them is our illustrious founder, Jeffrey Hart, who despite his brilliant side, the field of English and interpretation, definitely was not the most technologically savvy. So one of the funnier things was the fact that he never really quite got a grasp of email. But I think, one of the staffers or another young person in his life encouraged him to start using email as a communication medium. He took it up and he would actually type out the emails perfectly, you know like, good language, proper formatting, but then rather than send the email via the internet, he would actually just print it out and then put it in the post as a regular letter, and I think it was totally lost on him that he wasn’t getting it quite right.  

Collector’s Comments: The veracity of the story behind the email jokes is to be questioned, but staffers often make fun of their technological competence (or lack thereof) in a display of solidarity with Jeff Hart. For example, staff members may joke about how they would like to return to communicating by carrier pigeon and telegraph, rather than using more modern forms of communication such as “the interwebs,” whatever they are.