15 SLANG WORDS

So you think you’ve got all the Harvard lingo down. We’ve got our TFs instead of TAs, and “final clubs” instead of the much more universally recognized “frats.” What else is there to know, right? Wrong. FM digs into Harvard’s Archives to pull up some of the lesser-known Harvard slang. Take a look:



1) LoHo – Lowell House

2) Clubbie – a member of a final club

3) River Rat – one who lives in a River House

4) The Dump – Dunster House

5) A Poonster – a member of a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine

6) SOS – shuttle-ride of shame home from the Quad

7) Quadling – someone who lives in the Quad

8) The ’Berg – where freshman find their missing 15 pounds

9) Ho-worthy – whatchu gonna do with all that junk?

10) Billy Jim – Williams James Hall

11) “lib-in it up” – an awful night spent in a library, and not at all similar to “livin it up”

12) DHA – student whose class you want to be in

13) To fizzle – to fail out of a class gracefully

14) The Chuck – The Charles River

15) Clav – Claverly Hall, as in “Heard you got the Clav…”

16) “hangover chicken” - the oddly shaped chicken cutlets filled with oozing broccoli, served every Sunday at brunch.