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This page is dedicated to the many people of old who helped create
this lexicon. Though their names, faces, and phrases have been forgotten
by the new players, their words may live on in this hallowed hall of old
lexicon words.
- Baggage Man (n.)
- The top scorer at a tournament (or on a team, in a division,
etc.). We took a Greyhound bus to MIT's Beaver Bonspiel IV in 1997, and
when we arrived in New York, Norm the bus driver announced that "if you
have any questions, ask the baggage man. He knows more than anybody."
Somehow the phrase managed to stick, though we decided against giving a
suitcase to the top individual scorer at QOTC as a prize.
- Blonde Austrian freshman (n.)
- When Josh decided to step down from his post as sole president
and join the Consulate, he said he'd be Napoleon, Jess Josephine, and Ed
the Abbe Sieyes. Said Consulate was in office for a year, and Josh has yet
to impregnate any blonde Austrian freshmen.
- Binaca (n.)
- Also called "the juice," "the good-stuff," or other catchy lame
withe-boy slang for drugs, Binaca is Josh's andro. Rhett let him try a
squirt at Beaver Bonspiel V, and by the end of the tournament, he had
taken 31 shots of this spearmint upper, which kept him alert as rounds
dragged past 6:00 PM.
- "Blood and guts and fingers and toes" (n.pl.)
- The centerpiece of the most bizarre pop talk in the history of
academic competition. Before the semifinals of the '95 Princeton
tournament, Patrick Friel '96 used this line (the refrain from the rap
song "Chicken Huntin'" by the Insane Clown Posse) to fire up his
teammates. That line, coupled with the question "Who's goin' chicken
huntin'?" and the refrain "WE's goin' chicken huntin'," have remained part
of the team mythology to this day, playing crucial roles in the team's
defeat of the Tentarelli/Colvin Cornell behemoth at the 1997 Princeton
PUB-Fest and its come-from-behind drive to victory in MIT's Beaver
Bonspiel V.
- Brazil (n.)
- A large South American country, to which a former team treasurer
is rumoured to have absconded with the profits from QOTC.
- cheerleader (n.)
- A collegiate female, often seen in a butt-ugly pleated skirt,
but not frequently seen at CB practices. For three years Jess was an
exception to the rule, going as far as to do kicks before the Beaver
Bonspiel '97 finals. Swat lost.
- chucker (n.)
- A player in the habit of making especially stupid or reckless
buzzes. Examples: "Fred, you chucker! We were only FIVE points ahead!" or
"Ed, you chucker! It was PONTIAC'S Rebellion!" or "Ben, you chucker! They
already mentioned Hephaestus in the question!" The term seems to be an
insult in the game of darts, and entered the team lore as part of one of
the worst bonus questions ever submitted to QOTC; many team members will
respond to a "chucker buzz" by holding up their hands in the shape of the
letter C.
- chuckerfuck (n.)
- The person romantically linked to whoever occupies the position
of chucker at the time.
- Connecticut (n.)
- 1. The state which most strictly enforces its speed limit, as
the team learned to its chagrin en route to the 1995 Beaver Bonspiel.
- 2. The site of the Eugene O'Neill homestead, visited by members
of the team after the 1994 Beaver Bonspiel.
- 3. A state to which several old-time members of the team plan to
retire. There they'll start the Eugene O'Neill-theme restaurant, serving
such delicacies as "Desire under the Omelettes" and "A Long Day's Journey
int Nachos."
- Croce, Jim (n.)
- Singer, 1943-73, known for the hits "Operator," "I've Got a
Name," and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." SNEWT II was in part dedicated to him.
Earlier this year, Josh made a pilgrimage to his grave as part of his
desire to mess around with Jim.
- cut and paste (v.)
- A seemingly trivial action that even one of the most active
teams on the invitational circuit once found rather difficult. We arranged
a packet swap with another tournament to get playoff packets for QOTC VII,
but when the other tournament's packets arrived (very late), the second
half of every tossup was cut off. The explanation? In the words of the
other tournament director, "I've been having a little trouble cutting and
pasting, but this is the best we can do."
- Georgia (n.)
- 1. The home state of Jessica Harbour.
- 2. The home of Georgia State University, to which yet another
former treasurer is said to have absconded with the profits from
QOTC.
- Gore, Tipper (n.)
- Joe Robins's default answer to any question he didn't know.
- "It's Fred's Fault" (int.)
- 1. General rule of thumb at Swat CB, 1994-8.
- 2. During Jess's freshman year, over winter break, Fred asked
her to write 80% of the one packet to be submitted to Penn Bowl, despite
the fact that she had never attended an intercollegiate tournament before.
She did so, then left for Disney World with her family. Temperatures in
Orlando that weekend were the coldest in years, and her little brother
contracted strep. While making an emergency stop at the University of
Florida hospital (around midnight), Jess and her mom agreed this was all
Fred's fault, and the rule has held in the Harbour household to this
day.
- liberal arts school (n.)
- The night before MIT's 1995 Beaver Bonspiel invitational, we
arrived in Cambridge at 1:53 in the morning, just making it to the dorm we
were staying in (which wouldn't allow non-MIT guests to arrive after
2:00). It was decided that Chuck Stevens, who had an alarm and was staying
in another room, would wake the others, and he insisted that he would wake
us up by reciting poetry. A heated exchange ensued between Chuck and
Patrick Friel, in which the two debated whether Wordsworth or Tennyson was
the better poet as Fred Bush, Will Quale, Ed Cohn, and two MIT students
looked on. When the discussion was over, one MIT student turned to the
other and (with a straight face) aptly summarized the events that had just
taken place. "Swarthmore," she said," is a liberal arts school.
- Maimonides (n.)
- Joe Robins's default answer to any question he did know.
- "One Shining Moment" (n.)
- 1. The song played by CBS after the conclusion of every NCAA
Tournament.
- 2. The answer to the last tossup of the last round of JWB SMUTT,
which Jessica buzzed in on and got correctly, thus sealing Swarthmoregon
Trail's second win over a team of Georgetown newbies and Shawn Pickrell.
Afterwards, members of the Maryland and UVa teams were heard commenting on
how impossible said tossup had been. Since both teams had crushed Swat in
earlier rounds, this was Jess's small piteous shining moment of
revenge.
- pull a Hershiser (v.)
- To buzz in with an extremely impressive answer on a topic about
which the player in question knows nothing at a crucial moment in a game.
Pulling a Hershiser involves an answer impressive in its own right, but
breathtaking from the player responsible for it. Name after an impressive
(and possibly game-winning) buzz in the playoffs of the Princeton PUB-Fest
by Ed Cohn, who knows less about sports than Fred knows about geography.
Cf. "pull a Jaworski."
- pull a Jaworski (v.)
- To buzz in with an especially stupid neg in answer to a tossup
in you specialty at a crucial moment in a match. Pulling a Jaworski is the
ultimate sign of chuckerhood; the act is named after a neg by Ed Cohn on
the special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, which lost Swat a key match against
Virginia A at the 1999 NAQT Mid-Atlantic Sectionals (keeping the team out
of a tie for second place). Cf. "pull a Hershiser."
- Ratatoskr the Squirrel of Discord (n.)
- The squirrel in Norse mythology who runs up and down the
ash-tree, carrying hateful words between the eagle and Nidhogg. His
appearance in our lexicon came when he was the answer to one part of a
bonus. Since then, he has taken on a Swarthmore-specific personality,
becoming Ratatoskr the Flying Squirrel of Discord, swearing as he runs up
and down the tree of life. We imagine Ratatoskr is among the many
squirrels inhabiting the Scott Arboretum.
- Savannah (n.)
- A city on the Georgia coast. Fred once confused this city with
Atlanta during an impromptu geography quiz given by Patrick, thus
prompting Dan Berenberg '96 to note that "when Sherman began his March to
the Sea, I guess he didn't have far to go." See "200 Miles."
- The Sheridan Bowl (n.)
Ê - A bowling alley located in Garden City, Long Island; also the
site of ACUI's 1997 Region 3 recreational tournament and, for a half hour
in February 1997, the precise location of academic competition hell. We're
not sure exactly how we sinned badly enough to deserve this fate, but our
directions to the Region 3 College Bowl tournament led us here, further
delaying us after a nasty wrong turn. This delay (plus the fact that our
contact phone number was to the Sheridan Bowl, and not the tournament),
prevented us from taking part in CBI Regionals, and was the biggest black
mark on Ed Cohn's presidency; our excursion to Garden City also helped
confirm our decision to deaffiliate from CBI.
- 200 miles (n.pl.)
- In a dazzling display of geographic savvy, Fred Bush '98
convinced the head of the Swarthmore van pool to let the team take a
school van to the 1995 MIT tournament, since (as he put it) Boston is
"just a little over 200 miles away." This was a rarely-granted exception
to a Swarthmore rule barring groups from taking vans more than 150 miles
away -- but when the van's odometer read 736 miles, rather than the 400 or
so we'd promised, the team lost its van privileges for a year.
Maintained by Adrian Packel. For more information, contact Chris White.
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