The most commonly used words at Emory

Every school has a unique jargon that accumulates through shared struggles and secrets – Emory is no exception.

As Emory students, we don’t even realize that we’re using our own slang until we go home on Thanksgiving or Christmas break, and are met with bewildered expressions upon mentioning eating at “the duck” (yes, random friend, we have a ginormous duck-shaped building in the middle of campus. We’re weird).

So this list of words is not exactly meant for fellow students, but more for friends and relatives, who can’t understand our lives and phrases sometimes.

DUC

While you may autocorrect this to the animal, duck, in your brain upon hearing it – don’t. If you were right, we’d just be a community of around ten thousand people obsessed with a little, yellow bird.

In reality, we’re referring to the university center, and most of the time we’re just talking about the dining hall. If you hear us say the word in disgust, you’re not imagining things; we all love to hate the DUC and tend to bitch about the food, the lines, the struggle of finding a table etc. 2-3 times a day.

Football

For the students of several other institutions in North America, college football is an indispensable element of the collegiate experience. The traditions, fight songs, pageantry, long-time rivalry that surround the actual game make up a nationally shared culture, and play a massive role in establishing school spirit (… wait, what even is that?).

Here at Emory, however, it’s like talking about unicorns. Or mermaids. Or Hogwarts – you get the point: we don’t have a football team to speak of.

It’s a struggle even to watch football during Super Bowl let alone actually having people play it. Annoying as it is, most of us come to Emory aware of this defect, and tend to only get bitter when we talk to friends in other schools. (And no, going to watch G-Tech games isn’t the same thing.)

Cold

Now this is a good one, as it demonstrates human subjectivity perfectly. Since Emory is an assorted mix of American students from all northern and southern states, and a good amount of internationals, the definition of cold is different for every single person.

The result is Florida and Atlanta kids pulling out their winter coats when the temperatures go “down” to 55 degrees, while people from New York or Chicago insist on going around with shorts, even more mockingly when classes get cancelled due to a slight chance of snow.

And if it does snow, you’re guaranteed to run into excited Puerto Rican friends who are delighted to see the white stuff for the first time in their lives.

Pace

“noun; consistent and continuous speed in walking, running, or moving”, right? Well, no.

After your first semester at Emory, the word “pace” will be forever associated with pain, boredom, and objects being thrown at you. We get that the intentions are good, and that all the university wants is to get us acquainted with available resources etc.

We get that making weekly information sessions a required freshman course is practical. We get it. However, good intentions don’t change the strong feeling that PACE stole several 50 minutes of our lives that we’re never ever getting back.

Maggie’s

In the good old days before college, this was a reference to just another girls’ name for us, like everyone else. Not anymore. Now it’s our neighbourhood bar and grill, although every Emory student most likely has a love-hate relationship with the venue.

Every time we go out, we’re determined not to end up at Mags – we have our reasons: it’s kind of shitty as a whole, you get punched in the stomach and kicked all around several times trying to get to the bathroom, there are always a bunch of idiots looking for a fight…

Yet somehow, by the end of the night you’re at the top of the line chatting up your fav bouncer and all those reasons are forgotten. But it’s okay, because Mags is, absurdly enough, a second home.

 

Midterm

In an ideal universe, where the meanings associated with words matched their literal sense, “having midterms” would correspond to the singular exam a student had for a class in the middle of the semester. It doesn’t though. Not if you go here.

Midterms at Emory happen to be every exam you have before finals, and you can have up to three of them for each class (I’m looking at you Chemistry 141). I have no idea as to why they aren’t just called exams or tests, but I can say for sure that the phrase “midterm” has a serious and heavy tone that no other word can convey, and is enough to force you to pull all-nighters in Club Libs (I mean, the library. Again, jokes & banter).

Pre-business/premed

While it’s true that the majority of prestigious schools have several students interested in pre-professional tracks, Emory is by far one of the most extreme examples. The innocent question every freshman universally asks the other upon first meeting, “What’s your major?”, rapidly evolves into “Are you pre-biz or premed?” as early as Orientation Week, and soon enough you find yourself treating pre-law students like endangered species.

I, personally, am still beyond surprised when I meet creative writing or poli-sci majors, and tend to be suspicious of anyone that claims they want to go to Grad School. But at the end of the day, Gouizueta and the School of Medicine here are both pretty damn amazing, so can you blame us?