Tag Archives: social

On-Night (Annabel Revers)

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Title: On-Night

General Information:

  • Type: Verbal Folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: AM ’23
  • Date Collected: 11/1/2021
  • Location: Baker/Berry Library at Dartmouth College

Informant Data:

  • AM ’23 is from Orange County, California, and is a student at Dartmouth College studying Economics and Government. He is involved on campus as a teaching assistant in the Government Department. He plans on going into consulting after graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Culture Context: Dartmouth has a “work hard, play hard” culture where students are expected to perform well academically and work hard at the schoolwork while also maintaining an active social life on campus. Furthermore, fraternities are a very prominent part of the social scene at Dartmouth.
  • Social Context: Dartmouth students typically go out to parties to socialize on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. While students can find things to do on other nights, these three nights in particular are when larger events are hosted by the dozen fraternities on campus.

Item:

  • The phrase “on-night” refers to nights when Dartmouth students typically go out to parties. For example, someone will say to their friend, “Are you going out tonight?”. Their friend might respond with the following: “Yeah of course, it’s an on-night.”

Associated File:

  • Transcript: “An on-night is Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday when more parties are hosted. There’s parties on other nights once in a while, but those are the days most people go out. On-night is a phrase you hear all the time around campus. Friends will throw it around all the time, usually in the context of whether or not they should go out. I’m not sure when it originated: it’s be used since I’ve been here and I would guess long before.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Even students who go out a lot might not go out every on night, myself included.

Collector’s Comments:

  • While this phrase might not be entirely Dartmouth specific, it is a very prevalent phrase in our vocabulary.

Collector’s Name: Annabel Revers

Tags/Keywords: Verbal Folklore, Students, English, Dartmouth, Social

Flair (Dylan Bienstock)

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General Information:

  • Type: Verbal Lore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: V.L. ’23
  • Date Collected: 11/07/2021
  • Location Collected: Dartmouth

Informant Data:

V.L. is a 19-year-old male from New England. He was born and raised in New Hampshire and is at Dartmouth pursuing a major in Biology and is on the pre-med track. At Dartmouth, V. enjoys spending is on the club baseball team and lifting at Zimmerman Gym

Contextual Data

  • Cultural Context: Dartmouth is an extemely isolated school. The social events that Dartmouth students go to are exclusively Dartmouth students, occur in Dartmouth or student owned spaces, and are hosted by Dartmouth organizations. This enables themes such as flair to gain popularity as they fit in with the exclusive nature.
  • Social Context: Nearly, if not all, students at Dartmouth know the term flair. Additionally, most students have gone to a flair themed event and have some flair of their own that they have aquired from upperclassmen. Flair is an idea that bring Dartmouth students together, allowing them to have this shared idea that everyone can easily participate in.

Item:

Flair stands for flashy, exciting, colorful clothing typically worn to Dartmouth parties and events, generally, those at greek houses

Associate File:

Transcript: “Flair is both a theme and a way to describe how someone dresses. It means to wear flashy, exciting, colorful clothing to Dartmouth parties and events. While the term is used universally on campus, its use seems to be concentrated around greek houses. Freshman fall I was invited to a club baseball event at a fraternity and was told the theme and informed of its meaning. Throughout your freshman fall, you learn the term. It’s a universal word at Dartmouth. Everyone knows it even if they don’t use it. Some groups use it more than others. It helps people express themselves the way they want. It’s a very loose word that people can interpret how they want and wear what they want. Everyone has a different flair. It is easy to dress in theme and feel included”

Informants Comments:

Often when students graduate they will pass on their flair to underclassmen. This usually occurs during an end-of-the-year dinner/banquet for most organizations on campus and is a unique opportunity for individuals and communities to build connections with one another.

Collector’s Name: Dylan Bienstock

Tags/Keywords

  • Verbal Folklore
  • Slang
  • Students
  • Dartmouth
  • Social

Dark Side/Light Side (Harry Grigorian)

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Title: Dark Side/ Light Side

General Information:

         Verbal Lore, Slang

         Language: English

         Country of Origin: United States

         Informant: JS

         Date Collected: 11/2/2021

         Location Collected: Dorm Room

Informant Data: JS is a member of the Class of 2023 at Dartmouth. He is from Providence, Rhode Island and rows on the Varsity Men’s Lightweight Crew Team. JS is a Government major and enjoys spending time with his dog and riding his bike.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: These are among the two most commonly used phrases at Dartmouth. Student can use them in person or over text, and they are ubiquitous in all class years and across campus. Its usage certainly spikes around meal times as student plan where to meet friends.

Cultural Context: As there is only one dining hall, students are very familiar with it. It does have two separate eating areas, and one is lighter with white paint and tables while one is darker with brown paint and tables. Students coordinate where they want to sit by texting their friends before a meal asking if they are going light or dark side. It has a neutral connotation.

Item: Dark and Light Side; the two eating areas at Foco, one of which is darker and one of which is lighter. Example: I was sitting at Dark Side, but it was too depressing today so I moved to Light Side.

Quotes from Informant: “In foco,” these two terms describe “two places you can at in Foco on opposite sides of the building.” In a phrase, he could say “I would prefer to eat on dark side over light side today.” He learned this phrase “freshman fall, right at the start of school from a person who had already been here.” “All of Dartmouth knows dark side vs light side.” This slang came to be “because it’s a description of a place and dark side is a lot darker. It’s much easier to describe.”

Informant’s Comments: Everyone on campus knows this word and uses it frequently. Sports teams eat on Dark Side usually, especially JS’s crew team. “It’s nice because whole teams can sit together at the longer tables and not have to split up,” JS said.

Collector’s Comments: This slang feels very unique to Dartmouth. As we are all so familiar with Foco, it is cool that we can create slang (Dark and Light Side) within other slang (Foco). That’s pretty cool!

Collector’s Name: Harry Grigorian