‘Don Juan’ defines the bizarre jargon you’ll be hearing around college.
To the unsuspecting fresher, the Trinitarian lingo can come across at first like a slapdash collection of non-sequiturs, UPAs (utterly pointless acronyms) and charming anachronisms. So, as a phrasebook of sorts (eel-filled hovercrafts notwithstanding), we have decided out of our own sense of moral compulsion and largesse to get you up to speed with the following academic abecedary. Behold: the Trinitarian Thesaurus.
Accommodation Office ~ A leading cause of testicular torsion.
Bicycle ~ A mode of transport easily procured with bolt-cutters and determination and that is best enjoyed before someone does the same to you.
Book ~ Something one intends to read but doesn’t. A topic of conversation with others who have similarly never read it.
Chapel ~ A site of worship to the blessèd Trinity — Newton, Tennyson, and the holy Bacon.
College Marriage ~ Similar to conventional ones, only undertaken with more consideration.
Comedy ~ A concept which appears to have miraculously changed its meaning in Cambridge of recent years.
Deadlines ~ Not dissimilar to the sensation of falling from a height insofar as when it crosses your mind it’s already too late. (Ed: Evidently)
Dryden Society ~ A gathering of actors who put on shows of thrilling melodramatics, but only ever offstage.
English Student ~ An organism which has evolved to become an overly expensive pair of jeans with a vestigial brain attached.
Example Sheet ~ A mysterious piece of paper presented to you during a supervision of which you will have no recollection of having ever seen prior.
Examinations ~ If this was ever the answer, please repeat the question.
Freshers’ Week ~ Something either experienced or remembered but never both.
Freshers’ Fair ~ An opportunity to find even more things not to do.
Girton College ~ A short walk from Trinity.
Great Court Fountain ~ Trinity’s public bath; best enjoyed nude.
Great Court Run ~ A midnight tradition. (Ed: For legal reasons please don’t)
History ~ It’s all behind you, so why worry?
Land Economy ~ A course which must require intense lecture sessions from within Trinity bar considering how its practitioners are rarely seen elsewhere.
Lectures ~ A good lie-in spoiled.
Mathematics ~ The study of multiplication practised by people who cannot go forth and multiply themselves.
Pitt Club ~ A scientific establishment tirelessly devoted to the collection and dissemination of exotic venereal diseases between themselves and which they so generously share with the wider public.
Rankings ~ Unlike Oxford—which pits student against student — Cambridge had the good sense to go about it quite the other way around.
Rowing ~ An error of judgement induced by river E. Coli.
Sleep ~ No definition could be obtained prior to publication.
Student ~ Like a cigarette — perfectly formed then entirely burned out.
St John’s ~ The answer to Trinity’s lack of rubbish bins.
Supervision ~ Fortnightly fornication between one dominant and two submissives.
Tit Hall ~ The collegiate equivalent of a small cupholder adjoined to a Rolls-Royce.
The Union Society ~ A club devoted to public masturbation at which they excel often.
Tripos ~ Something which you top or tops you.
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