Antedating of "Yalie"

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:40 PM 11/2/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>At 7:13 AM -0500 11/2/03, Dave Wilton wrote:
>>  > Haven!)  Many colleges, I daresay the majority, have no word
>>>  at all for their people.  I have no idea what to call someone
>>>  at my own undergraduate alma mater, Centre College -
>>>  Centrists, perhaps?
>>
>>I would dispute that. Most colleges and universities do indeed have a word
>>for their students and alumni, usually a variant on their athletic mascot. A
>>"Quaker" is from Penn, a "Trojan" from USC, a "Tiger" from Princeton, and a
>>"Pard" (Leopard) from my alma mater, Lafayette. Few of these names enter the
>>general consciousness though, probably because few schools achieve the
>>iconic status that Harvard and Yale have.
>
>I'm not sure I buy the mascot argument.  Quite often if not usually,
>students can't be called by the name of their colleges mascot, I'd
>wager.  A football or basketball player from Penn may be a Quaker,
>but are the students so designated?  Are restaurants in Philly
>described as being popular among Quakers and Owls [= Temple students]
>the way the ones in New Haven are in terms of Yalies?  Taking Yale as
>an instance, the mascot is indeed a bulldog, as Dave notes below, and
>the teams are typically called the Bulldogs, although they can also
>be called the Elis.  They cannot, however, be called Yalies.  (The
>Bulldogs/Elis/#Yalies defeated the Crimson.)  And ordinary,
>non-team-playing students cannot be referred to as Bulldogs, or
>bulldogs.  I think the -ie formation might be a default when the
>phonology and morphology permit it.  My two kids are attending
>Skidmore College and Clark University, where the students are
>referred to (in town-gown contexts, for example) as "Skiddies" and
>"Clarkies" respectively.  They are most definitely NOT referred to by
>the mascots, in particular in the former case, which would turn the
>students into "Thoroughbreds".
>
>>
>>Harvard would seem to be an exception (probably because "Crimson" doesn't
>>lend itself to this form). Yale, interestingly, has two ("Yalie" and "Eli")
>>that are unrelated to the Bulldog mascot. Georgetown also has a non-mascot
>>name, "Hoya."
>>
>>I would bet that if you looked at the Centre College newspaper, you would
>>see "Colonels" used to refer to the student body and alumni.
>
>But would individual students refer to themselves as Colonels?
>Somehow I doubt it.
>
>larry, wondering if this thread is less ANTE or DIA

Ah, but Ohio University students are all Bobcats.  But St. Louis University
kids have it worse; they're Billikens--whatever they are.