For Notre Dame, I’ve heard Domers (as in the Golden Dome). I know an alum with DOMER (and his grad year) as his license plate.
(How do you tell if someone went to Notre Dame? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you. )
For Notre Dame, I’ve heard Domers (as in the Golden Dome). I know an alum with DOMER (and his grad year) as his license plate.
(How do you tell if someone went to Notre Dame? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you. )
@rjkofnovi In my experience the term “Mainer” refers to people born in or living in Maine, and not to graduates of any particular college.
@mackinaw, I think @rjkofnovi was joking about @MaineLonghorn’s post that her screen name represents her school (Longhorn = college nickname/mascot, not Maine).
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All the Notre Dame jokes are Stanford jokes out here. Where I grew up many were Cornell jokes.
Two more that we recognize in WA because of alumni density:
Oregon State = Beavs
U of O = Ducks or Zeroes, for the big O they make with their hands
UNC-Chapel Hill alums are Tarheels, of course. They refer to Duke students and alums as “Dookies” which is also in certain circles slang for, well, excrement.
Notre Dame grads are Domers. Sister school students at Saint Mary’s are Belles/Smicks/Smick chicks.
According to my D, a rising sophomore at Stanford, students/alums are not infrequently referred to as “Cardinals.” Never as Stanfordians.
Stanford students don’t really have any particular nickname that they’re referred to as. They’re just “Stanford students” or “Stanford grads.” The sports teams are referred to as “The Cardinal” rather than “Cardinals”.
You know that, and I know that, and @LoveTheBard probably knows that, but I doubt that most of the US knows that cardinal, in this case, is a color, not a bird. I think the reference was meant as one student/alum is a cardinal and more than one may be referred to as a group of cardinals. Or maybe not.
Anyway, referring to one as a cardinal is apparently not unheard of:
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/groups/overview/?group_id=0038990742
But as in my earlier analogy with Harvard, I agree, I most often here “Stamford alum.”
It’s tempting to call them a “college of cardinals” but the Vatican has already claimed that.
But it would be odd to call someone from Stanford the name of a color. We don’t call someone from Harvard a “crimson.”
From the most recent Stanford Alumni e-mail: “The sole Cardinal on the court is Justice Stephen Breyer, ’59.”
Harvard people used to be referred to in some circles as “Johns” or “Johnnies” (after John Harvard), and occasionally “Cantabs” (“Cantab” being an abbreviation for “Cantabrigian”, i.e., someone from Cambridge). I think all are very much on the wane.
^ But I’ve never heard of Stanford people being referred to as “Lelands” after Leland Stanford.
@momofsenior1 “Purdue grads tend to refer to themselves as Boilermakers”
My wife came up with her own name for our “Boilermaker”. She called her a Purduckan. I doubt it will be come popular but our poor D will forever carry that moniker in our household.
“Cantab” is used as a slur by Yalies in the context of Harvard-Yale competition, notably the Game weekend, but also in other kinds of rivalries, like the student newspapers. I’ve never heard it outside those contexts.
More on “Cantabs” and “Johns” on p. 54 of “Harvard A to Z”: https://books.google.com/books?id=WGrBJFRw1GsC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=harvard+cantabs&source=bl&ots=yHuN3nwdHB&sig=lCcFP48U2NWEIZwFwfwwZjsvHas&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi10eunha7cAhURn-AKHUi9DGsQ6AEIoQEwEQ#v=onepage&q=harvard%20cantabs&f=false
I think I’ve only ever seen the term “Cantabs” in sports headlines in the Yalie Daily, as in “Elis best Cantabs in water polo.” But that’s just a student headline writer trying to be cute, the way headline writers do. I never thought of it as a “slur.” Clearly it’s just short for “Cantabridgians,” a term that’s also used for people from the University of Cambridge in England, I would think if anything there’s a certain measure of prestige attached to it. Why would it be considered a slur? Unless Harvard is now so high and mighty that Harvard people think any association with the “other” Cambridge is beneath their dignity.
“Why would it be considered a slur?”
Context.
“sports headlines in the Yalie Daily”
Exactly. This is not what Harvard people call themselves. It’s what a rival calls them. Rivals don’t choose nicknames to show respect and affection. When people from Texas A&M call Texas “t.u.,” they are using it as a slur. There’s nothing inherently insulting about those two letters; the meaning is controlled by the intent to show disrespect to the rival. See also “Democrat Party.”
For @Hanna or other former residents of Cambridge a little throwback,
“Down at the Cantab, that’s where it’s at y’all!” B-)
-Little Joe Cook and the Thrillers
Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s mostly all in good fun, kind of tongue-in-cheek ribbing.
I’m a Michigan alum (undergrad). Because of a fierce, multigenerational football rivalry, many Ohio State coaches and athletes and some fans refuse to utter the name “Michigan,” instead following the practice of the legendary late football coach Woody Hayes who always referred to Michigan as “that school up north,” which of course Michigan people would never say. Michigan fans respond with bumper stickers that read, “A Buckeye is a little nut.” And back and forth it goes. I’m sure some people carry it to extremes and harbor genuine hostility, but I think for most people it’s just a silly little sideshow to the athletic competition, signifying nothing when all is said and done.
Is any of this a “slur”? I wouldn’t call it that; not like a racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or sexual orientation epithet, or a derogatory term for those differently abled. It’s a nickname, that’s all. And in a way it’s even a backhanded indicator of respect. Ohio State people don’t do any of this with regard to Michigan State or Penn State, even though they’ve been better than Michigan in football in some recent years. But Michigan remains Ohio State’s main rival (and vice versa), and therefore the target of all the verbal jousting. A school isn’t really your rival unless they’re a worthy competitor of long standing, the one it means the most to you to defeat. For Yale that’s Harvard. For Cal it’s Stanford. For Ohio State it’s Michigan. For Alabama it’s Auburn. And on down the line. It comes out in good-natured teasing with nicknames and such, but beneath all that is genuine respect for a formidable foe.