Bomb

[Joanne M. Despres]

To "bomb" a test meant to fail it badly when I was in school in the
1970s.

Joanne

On 14 Mar 2005, at 11:08, Damien Hall wrote:

> In the MIT slang list was:
>
> 'Bomb - When performed on a quiz, excellence; when performed on the "East
> Campus Fence", extreme excellence.'
>
> Am I right in thinking that since this list was published (and in general usage
> - I've never been even once to MIT), *bomb* has reversed its slang meaning?  To
> me, at least, in the context of tests (academic or in the more general sense of
> 'doing something challenging'), it now means 'fail'.  In my mental lexicon it
> has always been a shortening of 'bomb out'.
>
> Damien Hall
> University of Pennsylvania