The Meaning of RadcLIFFe

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ALDATE (vb)

To keep a careful diary of which excuses you have used to which tutors and when, in order to avoid detection the next time you have failed to produce the required work.

BALLIOL (n)

The intense and unforgettable mix of excitement and embarrassment caused by trying to avoid walking into lines of tourist camera fire whilst wearing sub-fusc in public.

BANBURY (n)

The least interesting poster in your room.

BLACKWELL (n)

A strange and nasty inedible piece of bath-sponge which is offered to you on a plate if you sign up for a vegetarian meal in college.

BRASENOSE (n)

The sort of "friend" who keeps dropping round for cups of coffee merely so that he or she can insult your music collection and the quality of your speakers.

CAMBRIDGE (intj)

An expletive used on discovering that someone has kindly ripped your bicycle apart and placed some of it down a drain, some of it up a lamp-post, and most of it at the bottom of the Cherwell.

CATZ (n)

The unique and unbreathable mix of air, carbon monoxide and unindentifiable stenches found only in the Cornmarket.

CLARENDON (adj)

Descriptive of the sort of person who irritates others by referring to the Bodleian Library as "Bodley".

COWLEY (n)

A neighbour who protests about the loudness of your music at 10pm during a term when he or she doesn't have exams but you do, and who then goes on to play the piano at 3 o'clock in the morning and to fumigate the whole of the corridor by smoking cigars all day.

EXETER (vb)

To remove a book from the Bod entirely by mistake and then worry yourself senseless about how you're going to smuggle it back through all the security that'll be there when they discover it's missing.

HERTFORD (n)

The most antisocial person at a lecture.

HILDA (vb)

To make a ridiculous amount of even more ridiculous excuses as to exactly why the other person in the punt should do all the work with the pole.

HOLYWELL (n)

A curse uttered after spending five unsuccessful minutes trying to cross St Giles.

IFFLEY (n)

The frustration caused by actually trying to find any given location in Christ Church.

JERICHO (n)

Anyone of a non-student species who walks down the Cornmarket, including people with triple-width pushchairs, gibbering tramps who have gone barking mad, three-and-a-half thousand old ladies with shopping trollies, and nobody else whatsoever.

KEBLE (adj)

Descriptive of the sort of feeling you DON'T have on Friday of Eighth Week.

LINCOLN (n)

One who artificially adopts a plummy Oxford accent for no apparent reason.

MAGDALEN (n)

A book recommended to you by your tutor which costs 27.95 second-hand in Blackwell's.

MERTON (adj)

Descriptive of the sort of bop to which only 6 people turn up, and even they wish they hadn't.

ORIEL (n)

A person whom you see around college and say "hello" to every day without having even a glimmer of an idea about who they actually are.

OXFORD (vb)

To get up later than eleven in the morning.

PEMBROKE (n)

A long winding staircase with nothing but broom cupboards on it.

RADCLIFFE (vb)

To pinch someone else's comedy format and use it to write vaguely amusing dry comments about local university life.

SHELDONIAN (adj)

Descriptive of the place with the highest concentration of tourists at any given moment.

TRINITY (n)

A work crisis for the third night running.

TURL (n)

An enormous crowd of shouting tourists who are firmly resolved never to let you get past, and whom you meet no matter which side-road you duck down.

WADHAM (vb)

To pretend by nodding and agreeing furiously that you know what your tutor is talking about.

WOODSTOCK (n)

The sort of tutor who is never seen by anybody outside his room.

WORCESTER (n)

The precise number of posters per hour that people pin up over the top of the one you put up yourself.