Throughout this semester, about 20 eager young linguists have searched the campus, behind every statue and under every squirrel, to find words, special words. These are not just any words that any Tom, Dick, or Harry that wondered into Cornell University could understand. These words are only truly understood by a select few, about 10,000 enrolled students and some faculty.

I said eager young linguists. These are not staunchly linguists of times past that huff about the deterioration of the English language and merely collect words from Socrates or Shakespeare. These are those that want all words represented, universal and local. Authors of other dictionaries have spent great effort attempting to document universal words and have thus imposed strict guidelines for word entry. One of the victims to these guidelines are locally utilized terms.

For example, Samuel Johnson writes in his preface to the Dictionary of the English Language, that although he would like to, he cannot "visit the carvers to learn the miner's language (or) take a voyage to perfect (his) skill in the dialect of navigation . . . of which no mention is found in books" (Johnson, ___). Although, his time will not allow entrance of jargon into his dictionary, we can visit the miners or take that voyage. In our case, the voyage was to Cornell University, and has even made that documentation our purpose.

Jargon is a set of words that creators of most dictionaries would ideally love to have in their books, but cannot. Lingo, however, is something that most dictionary-makers scorn and for that reason, refuse entrance. As a representative of past lexicographers, Samuel Johnson states

He is saying to not include slang because it is not worthy of the longstanding preservation that dictionaries would grant. However, in our dictionary, slang is a large component because it is a significant part of Cornell's local language usage.

That is where the purposes of Johnson and the class of Linguistics 100.2 split. For either rationalization of a lack of time or scorn against slang, Johnson is attempting to ignore both jargon and lingo. We, on the other hand, have chosen to make a dictionary solely from those same parts of the language that more well known dictionaries have ignored. We are eager because to create a dictionary with only regional peculiarities is do something that has not been done before by a dictionary, to embrace the living of a language by focusing on a region's peculiarities in words. It singles out these peculiar words as special and almost beautiful because they typify much of life in the Ithaca area.

Thus, jargon and lingo of Cornell University has become the backbone of this modern dictionary, The Dictionary of Local Usage. To clarify these terms, jargon is a term that Cornell University has created to explain or give title to a specific aspect of Cornell life. Lingo, on the other hand, is originated by student use. Whether or not Johnson and other lexicographers accept the words of The Dictionary of Local Usage, the evolution of many of these words is similar to any other word in a universal dictionary.

Many words have formed the basis for other words in the English language. One might think that these genres such as jargon and lingo would not mesh like other accepted forms of speech, but this modern dictionary has proven otherwise. Probably the clearest example of this combination of jargon and lingo is with the terms, Bear Necessities and Bare Nasties. Bear Necessities (bear-ni'sesates/ first word rhymes with "hair", second word sounds like "ness""cess""sit""tees"s) is the official name for a convenience store in Mary Donlon Hall". The University named it as a modification of bare necessities. Necessities is most likely derived from they type of items that the store sells, such as food, toiletries, and school supplies, which are all items that a college student typically needs. The change from "bare" to "bear" is most likely a result of the Cornell University's mascot, the bear (Cody and Nguyen).

A spoof, and consequent lingo term, Bare Nasties (The first word sounds like "bear"; the second word sounds like "nastyz") is a derogatory term for that same convenience store. "The store has just about everything that you could want in a pinch, but you must be willing to fork out a premium for whatever you buy" (Nguyen). As a result of the similar sounds of 'bear' and 'bare' and a bitterness towards being cheated of money, its name has naturally changed to Bare Nasties" (Yao).

Many times terms get shortened over time, and the dorms of this campus is no exception. For example, Clara Dickson, a resident hall on North Campus that is "known as the largest dorm east of the Mississippi River" (Cody), is beginning to have a new nickname, the Big Dick (big dik, /bIg dIk/). Cornell has titled this hall after the mother of our University's first president, Andrew Dickson White. For brevity, the University has called the hall simply Dickson, "but perhaps because this abbreviation just was not good enough, many students are beginning to call it the Big Dick (Fellman)." Increasingly, students have noticed this slang, and it has been gaining momentum. This term will never be admitted into a Cornell 101 Guidebook, but it is nonetheless a worthwhile term on campus. Johnson would have never allowed this word, but our dictionary calls for all locally utilized words, and we must not discriminate.

Not only have students renamed places, but they have also verbified proper words that come from the special Cornell word bank into new words. Johnson included words like this such as enchantment and enchant, but would not allow these words, no matter the derivation, based on the prior detailed criteria. Therefore, we are abiding by some of his rules and ignoring others. For example, Cornell has titled a test other than the final exam as a prelim (rhymes with "free" "gym") to imply a preliminary exam. People have employed this word create another expression that illustrates what happens to a person that does not do well on such a test, pre-eliminate (pri-ilImInet). "This new verb suggests that a person is eliminated (from Cornell, or the GPA race) before taking final exams" (Dharghouth). This verb was needed because there had been no word prior that expressed their devastation after prelims.

The Dictionary of Local Usage, otherwise known as the Jargon and Lingo of the Cornell/ Ithaca community, is composed of two distinct types of words: the Jargon and the Lingo. This dictionary is simply picking up where famous dictionaries such as Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language left off. He would not or could not include words such as ours, but these words, like all words have value and should be expressed. Although Johnson did not deem these words worthy of dictionary distinction, they still have a life of their own and behave in fashions similar to many universal words. Their reason for creation may be necessity, disgust, remembrance, or serendipity. Whatever their origin, they act and interact with one another to create a set of Cornell usage of which foreigners to our little mountain should know.