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In This Issue

• Fun Stuff to Do With Your Roommate
• Morningside Heights = Wormhole
• New York's Suprise Gift: Humidity!
• Letters to the Feditor
• Suggestions for Campus Political Dialogue
• Dodge-ing the Freshman 15
• First-Year Friendships Are For Fakeys
• Columbia's Least Employable Grads
• A Quick Briefing on Columbia-Speak
• Thirty Things To Do Before You Graduate Columbia
• CU is Like Folsom Prison
• Attack of the Killer Barnard Wymyn Blowjob
• Phil Steigman: Everyone's Class President
• John Jay Life Tried Without A Floor
• Some Stuff Your RA Might Have Left Out
• Housing and Dining Fed Fun Quiz
• Compliments of Health Services
• THEY WATCH
• What's a Fed Bash? Glad You Asked.
• The Staff of 21.0

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language--so the argument runs--must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
--George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

Consider me a less-insightful but far more attractive version of George Orwell.

Here at Columbia, some words have been and used and abused so often that they no longer follow their dictionary definition. Rather, this environment has ruined these words, twisting them until they represent little more than a shadow of their original meaning. I list some examples here, not to hasten your adjustment, but as an indictment against this institution and its abuse of language.

Controversy (n) : Anything about which anyone is upset. Therefore, everything is a controversy, whether it results in student protests and administrative action, or mild discomfort in the men’s room on the 6th floor of Furnald. And if the 6th floor of Furnald still smells the next day, do you know what that is? Yep, controversy.

Expansion (n) : See Gentrification.

Gentrification (n) : When white people move into a neighborhood. See Controversy.

Intimidation (n) : When a professor says something with which you disagree. See Academic Freedom.

Academic Freedom (n) : Your professor’s right to say things with which you disagree.

Grievance (n) : A university-supported method of recourse against professors who say things with which you disagree. Considerably less effective and satisfying as giving said professor a wedgie.

Ad Hoc (adj) : Latin term meaning “Hey look over there!”

Core (adj) : Refers to a relic of the days when a working knowledge of classics and medieval philosophy was somehow important in the real world.

Greek (adj) : Of or having to do with any of a number of selective societies where participants are abnormally socialized in gender-restricted environments that promote objectification of the self and others. Can also indicate presence of souvlaki.

Student Government (proper n) : An extension of the university’s interests disguised as your peers.

Activities Board at Columbia (proper n) : An extension of the university’s interests disguised as your peers.

Student Development and Activities (proper n) : An extension of the university’s interests (undisguised).

Lee C. Bollinger (person) : A human smokescreen. See Ad Hoc.

Judith Shapiro (person) : An extension of the university’s interests disguised as the president of Barnard.

Engineer (n) : The butt of a joke.

Engineer (v) : To construct a bong out of a soda bottle and a couple toilet paper rolls.

Advise (v) : To not help.

New Student Orientation Program (n) : How older students figure out the sexual orientation of new students.

Morningside Heights (place) : Where you live.

Harlem (place) : Where you say you live.

Columbia University (proper n) : Where you go to school.

Uptown (place) : Where you say you go to school in order to avoid looking and sounding naïve, sheltered, or privileged.

Privilege (n) : A bad thing.

Privileged (adj) : You.