Lexicon

The CTY Jargon File

• Activities: scheduled social events and such that CTYers are required to attend after classes and on weekends. Popular ones include Discussion Group and Improv. "What activities are you signed up for?"
• Baby CTY: CTY Young Student's Program.
• Canon: The songs which must be played at all CTY dances... see The Sound of CTY. "In Your Eyes is part of the Lancaster Canon, but not the Carlilse one..."
• Couching: (CAR) The act of sitting on the Couches in the HUB during free time. A Coucher is one who Couches. "After dinner, Pierre and Sarah joined other CTYers who were Couching."
• CTY: Can't Tell You.
• CTYer: A CTY student or Alumni; also, in some cases, anyone who is associated with CTY and understands the CTY spirit. "My college roommate was a CTYer too, but I didn't know her when I was there."
• CTY-L: The main CTY e-mailing list.
• Digiclan: A group of Lancaster CTYers; started as a group of students who took Digital Logic (digi) in the early 90's. They are known for their weirdness and their (currently defunct) webpage.
• Floorgy: Synonym for grass orgy.
• Grass Orgy: In a grass orgy, one CTYer lies down on the grass, a second CTYer lays down with his or her head on the first CTYer's stomach, a third CTYer lays down on top of the second CTYer and so on, until many CTYers are all lying on top of one another on the grass.
• Ha!: A game based off a Grass Orgy; it involves laying on the stomachs of other plays and trying to make them laugh by saying "HA!"
• Hall Bondage/Hall Bonding: A Sunday activity in which a CTYer is required to hang out with other students living on their hall.
• Hall Hopping: Either legal or illegal practice of having sleepovers in other halls.
• Hall Meeting: A meeting of one's hall. It is conducted by the RA, and is used to announce news and sign up for activities.
• HUB: (CAR) The Holland Union Building: eating and hanging out place at Carlilse
• Jazzies: (SAR) The jazz camp people, usually used to refer to cute boys at the jazz camp "oh look, sari's flirting with the jazzies!" They are distinct group from rinas/rinos, and better liked.
• Kline: The gym at Carlilse
• KW: The offices at Carlilse... where you go if you get sick or in trouble.
• LLRT: The Land of The Large Round Tables. A group of Lancaster CTYers, and a shoot off of the DigiClan. LLRT originally referred to a group of CTYers in 1993; the name has passed down through several generations and is still used today. Also, Dining Hall 4 at Lancaster, where LLRTs ate.
• Mandatory Fun: Activities, especially weekend activities. It is one of the oldest terms in the CTY lexicon, dating back at least to the mid-80s.
• Mao: A popular Carlisle Card game.
• Meat Market: Evening social time. "I met Guinevere at the first Meat Market."
• Nomore/Nevermore: 1. A CTYer who can not return to CTY the next year due to age. Sometimes also refers to CTYers who won't be returning to CTY the next year do the other factors. No/Nevermores are usually quite respected in the CTY community. 2. One's last year at CTY. "1997 was my nomore year." Some CTYers hold that there is a subtle difference between a "nomore" and a "nevermore." A "nomore" is what you are during your last year at CTY, while a "nevermore" is what you are after you have left CTY for the last time. Alternately, in more recent years, a "nevermore" is used to refer to someone who can no longer attend due to age, while a "nomore" refers to CTYers who do not return due age, such as money or parents. However, for the most part, the two terms are used interchangeably.
• One Shot: Someone who is both a first year and a nevermore.
• Passionfruit: A morning ritual involving toasting friends and drinking juice. After the Canon, one of the most important and universal CTY traditions. See Passionfruit Online and the History of Passoinfruit.
• Post-CTY Depression/CTY Withdraw: The feeling of sadness CTYers, especially nomores, experience after leaving CTY. They miss their friends and their CTY experiences. Sometimes, this can last for weeks until school starts again, or even longer. It is characterized by crying when hearing American Pie or other Canon songs, talking obsessively about CTY to friends from home, and hastily organized end of summer reunions.
• Quads: (CAR) 1. The large grassy squares where CTYers gather to play frisbee and chill. "Let's go play Ha! on the upper quad" 2. Any of the buildings that surround the quads where CTYers live. "I live in Quad 10."
• RA: Residential Advisor. Like camp councilors, RAs are in charge of watching students while they aren't in class, organizing activities, and conducting Hall Meetings.
• Rinas/Rinos: Through some strange coincidence, most CTY sites are shared with ballet camps. Ballet campers are called "rinas" from ballerinas, and usually are looked at with scorn by CTYers, though there have been cases of students who were both CTYers and rinas in their lives. A male rina is called a "rino," which is pronounce "rhino" like the animal.
• Scum: A popular card game at Lancaster; there are several variations, including Scum: The Masquerade and Scum: The Assention
• Sperm/Squirrel: 1. A first year CTYer. Squirrel is the more prevalent term at Lancaster, while Sperm is used at Carlisle despite administrative attempts to squash it. "Even though Katie is a squirrel, she understands the essence of CTY." 2. the year that one was a sperm/squirrel. "1994 was my sperm year."
• TA/LA: Teaching Assistant/ Lab assistant. Usually, college students who assist with instructing classes.
• The Ten-Plus-One Commandments: at Hamilton, the basic rules were displayed in "thou shalt not" form. originally there were ten. over the years, they were rewritten but eventually there ended up being eleven (or ten-plus-one) commandments. #11- "No sitting on window ledges or crossing them on your way out the window." This was necessitated by the actions of one John Hauge, aka Spam, a former CTYer and now RA, who sat on a Hamilton window ledge.
• Uber-CTY/Uber-CTYer: Person or thing that embodies the spirit of CTY, that is very involved in the life of CTY. Example: "saraht is such an uber-ctyer."
• Veil Laws: The rules, instituted in the mid-80's, that states that boys can not be in girls' rooms, and girls can not be in boys' rooms, for *cough* obvious reasons. Called the veil law, because the theory was that next the admin was going to make the girls wear veils. Eventually, this rule was accepted as a matter of course.