Dartblog

In Victorian times it was impolite to refer to the stomach, given that said organ was connected with points south to which individuals of good breeding did not refer. It struck me that this spirit is still alive in the land when I attended a Dartmouth women’s soccer game yesterday (a 2-1 victory for a skillful and high-spirited team) and heard the announcement that ten minutes of sudden victory overtime was in the offing. Sheesh! The world survived for generations despite referring to death in this context. Have we become that delicate?

Other elocutions of a similar stripe spring to mind: champagne powder snow has prudishly superceded virgin powder in the ski magazines — though with our increasing concerns about alcohol, can this reference to bubbly stay with us for long?

Extraordinarily enough, girl has staged a comeback, after being a virtual ticket to emasculation in the undergraduate world of my day. The D records too many uses to count, but still, a certain tension exists. The paper’s ever-sensitive editors chastely headlined a 2005 article on the evolving female contribution to Winter Carnival as follows: “Women take on new roles”; in the article itself, the writer went on to use girl six times.

At the College, an administration intent on toeing the PC line long ago replaced the term freshman with the less-than-euphonious first-year student — not that this decision has restrained the students themselves: the D has used the stricken term in 1067 articles over the past 15 years.

Kudos to the Athletic Department, however, for diplomatically bestriding (am I allowed to say that?) this controversy: while freshman is routinely employed in media guides and press releases, in the listing of team rosters, only the indeterminate abbreviation Fr. is used. I really admire people who can find ways to keep true to tradition and also avoid offending the PC powers that be. Such a skill is not an arrow in my own quiver, as you may have noticed.