Lexicon

• 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?" "What's your daily (done for one day only)/weekly (done for a whole week)?"
• Arches: (LAN) popular place to hang out at Lancaster, outside of North/South Ben. Different Arches are also meeting places, places for activites and places to sign up for things. Arches split into North Arches, Central Arches, and South Arches.
• ASFC: (LAN) The field house at Lancaster, which contains a pool, small basketball courts and an indoor track. During 2004, this space was used for meals while the dining hall was reconstructed
• Alcove: The great-great-grandspawn of Digiclan. Was in exile during the 2004 year (due to the lack of an actual alcove), but was revived in 2005.
• 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 / Center for Bad Spellers / Catch The Yamaka / Corrupted and Tainted Youth / Commune for Truncated Yogurts / Center for Troubled Youth / Center for Intelligent Youth / Camp Touch Yourself / Center for Transvestite Youth.
• CTYer: A CTY student or Alumnus; 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: (LAN) A group of Lancaster CTYers; started as a group of students who took Digital Logic in the early 90's. They are known for their weirdness and their (currently defunct) webpage.
• Double-Klineing: Spending both activity periods in the Kline gym.
• ERS: Egyptian RatScrew, a very popular card game at CTY.
• Five-year Freak: Lucky fobber who through some combination of birthdate, grade-skippage, and pure luck is eligible to attend CTY for five years as opposed to the usual four.
• Floorgy: Synonym for grass orgy, only usually inside (on the floor, as opposed to grass).
• FNORD: (LAN) Kinda weird that there's no title for this entry, huh? Just a blank spot, no visible word.
• Fob: (LAN) Little plasticy things first issued in 2003 at Lancaster that magically opened doors with a simple wave. Universal curse-word substitute.
• 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. Also known as "Tummy Chains".
• 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!" At Carlisle, it is an accepted excuse for a stomach orgy.
• 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: (CAR) The gym at Carlisle
• KW: (CAR) The offices at Carlisle... where you go if you get sick or in trouble.
• LLRT: (LAN) 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. Mandatory Fun activities have a very notorious reputation for being extremely boring and/or stupid.
• Mao: A very popular CTY card game, played at a variety of different sites.
• Meet market: The evening social time at CTY.
• 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 "nomore" is used to refer to someone who can no longer attend due to age, while a "nevermore" refers to CTYers who does not return for other reasons, such as money or parents. However, for the most part, the two terms are used interchangeably. At SAR, a nevermore is someone who can't return due to age. A nomore is someone who isn't returing for some other reason.
• One shot: Someone who is both a first year and a nomore.
• PandaClan: (KNE) The students of FCPS Sess 1, so named because of a very bad panda joke told by the instructor, which then spread through campus like a radioactive, mutant virus. Students were known to hide behind bushes, jumping out at passers-by shouting, "I'm a PANDA!"
• 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 Passionfruit.
• Post-CTY depression/CTY Withdrawl: 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.
• Quad: ((SAR)CAR)(#1 also LAN) (and also JHU)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."
• Quad Time: (LAN)(SAR) Evening social time from 9:00-9:45.
• RA: Residential Advisor. Like camp counselors, 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 has been a case of a student who was both a CTYer and rina in their life. A male rina is called a "rino," which is pronounce "rhino" like the animal (not used at Lancaster).
• Scum: A popular card game at Lancaster; there are several variations, including Scum: The Masquerade and Scum: The Ascension.
• Second Saturday: The day of each session marked by cross-dressing and gratuitous RHPS references.
• Shorthand Dates: The format of expressing CTY sessions, sites, and courses.
• 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 Hague, aka Spam, a former CTYer and now RA, who sat on a Hamilton window ledge.
• Thursday: According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Earth is destroyed on a Thursday, and the only survivor from Earth on the day of destruction is a one Arthur Dent, who happens to be wearing a dressing gown. Towels are the most useful thing a hitchhiker can have. Bathrobes are like dressing gowns made out of towels. Hence, each Thursday, CTYers wear bathrobes all day.
• Turkey Hill: (LAN) Like 7-11, only close to the Franklin & Marshall so people can go there and get nutritious food, like Ramen noodles.
• Uber-CTY/Uber-CTYer: Person or thing that embodies the spirit of CTY, that is very involved in the life of CTY. Example: "Sarah is such an uber-ctyer."
• Veil law: 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.
• Vertical Rule: (CAR) The rule that says if you're at meet market and you don't sit up straight, you get a bright light in your eyes and many RAs looking at you suspiciously. However, the vertical rule can be bent if you are out in the open or perpendicular to each other, as in playing the game Ha!
• Winged Llama: (LAN) Llama. With wings.
• Your mom: (especially SAR) Any phrase can be turned into a "your mom phrase": "This food is gross."- "Your MOM is gross."; "What time is it?"- "Half past your mom."
• Your mother: (LAN) She doesn't work here. Running joke that can be traced back to a speech given by Chris Mahoney, site director at Lancaster for the first week of 01.1, at the opening ceremonies.