sophomore CD, etc.

Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM
Thu May 25 21:15:50 UTC 2000


Gregory {Greg} Downing <gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU> writes:

>>>>>
>At 10:05 PM 5/24/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>>Have Listmembers encountered the fairly recent usage of "sophomore" to mean:
>>the second of a sequence
>>(analogous to "freshman" meaning the first, the initial one -- as in "your
>>freshman --followed by your sophomore-- year in college)?
>>

And before it was a music-industry term it was a college-student term -- the
dreaded "sophomore slump" was a well-discussed phenomenon when I was in
college 20 years ago.
<<<<<

That's a straightforward application of literal use of "sophomore", referring to
the second year of college. As I understand it, the question targets the
*extension* of the word to refer to the second of a (any?) sequence: a second
CD, second movie, etc. The sophomore slump (again, AIUI) isn't a "second slump",
but a slump in the sophomore year, after the student has exhausted zer freshman
momentum or encountered more challenging courses.

Similar to "sophomore slump":
 - "freshman forty": weight gained from campus food & student lifestyle
 - "senior slump": laxity and casual truancy toward the end of the last year of
high school, especially in the (as it were) lame duck period between finals and
graduation

Nothing for juniors?

-- Mark (who really should be doing his regular work as...
   Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
         Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Dragon Systems, Inc.
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com



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