"hazing", OED sense 3, needs work

[Dave Wilton]

This looks like one of the entries that hasn't been updated since the first
edition.

Note that the definition is "on freshmen," not "by freshmen."

Any update that calls out American schools (as in "esp. at U.S.
universities") should also make reference to fraternities, which is where
most, but by no means all, of the hazing occurs at non-military schools. The
lack of reference to fraternities is another indicator that this is a very
old entry.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Victor Steinbok
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 11:56 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "hazing", OED sense 3, needs work

It's more like a brutal secret or informal initiation rite, not horseplay.
And it's in no way limited to colleges. Military units, fire/police
departments, sports teams all have been known for hazing (as for colleges,
the most identifiable would be the military academies and that's because of
their military nature, not because of being colleges).
In fact, colleges and freshmen are two characteristics that are completely
irrelevant to a general definition. Hazing is generally practiced by groups
that, in some way, pride themselves on exclusivity and being cooperative
units and the practice is meant to induce the sense of unity in new entrants
(in some bizarre, twisted logic, but that's the theory). If anything,
freshmen would be the /target/ of hazing, not those practicing it, which is
exactly what the quotations show--but the same applies to rookies, newbies,
and otherwise novices in all sorts of groups.

The current description of hazing 3. seems to fit what these days would be
recognize as being punked. That's not the same thing at all, although, I
suppose, at one point, it might have been called "hazing" at "American
Colleges". But even the three examples from the 1800s do not refer to
"horseplay"--Harvard: "absurd and barbarous custom"; Yale:
"unhappily lead to the death ... and denunciation ... as stupid and brutal";
Princeton: "outrages of recent years".

     VS-)

On 7/13/2012 9:52 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> Under "hazing", n., we find:
>
>    3. A species of brutal horseplay practised on freshmen at some
> American Colleges.
>
> Very Johnsonian!  But he's a bit out of date.  Freshmen?  (He forgets
> the marching band at Florida State.)  American?  It has crossed
> several oceans, I'm sure.  Colleges?  It reaches down to the elitest
> prep schools, if not lower.
>
> Joel

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