While many people created dictionaries that attempt to describe the ways that the majority of society uses language, we have endeavored, with our Dictionary of Cornell English, to describe a language used by only one community in the world, the Cornell community. While most dictionaries seek the normal terms of society and eschew the irregularities, we shun the standard and hunt for the peculiar. Most dictionaries do not trifle with terms particular to a single community, yet these words and phrases are all that we care about. What we have created is, technically, a dictionary, but it is a polar opposite of its relatives.

The first notable characteristic of our dictionary is the resource from which we find our data. While many dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary or Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language hunt for literary examples of word-use, we gather our entries primarily from oral examples. This arises from the fact that many of our entries are nicknames, clippings, or acronyms of other words. Though they may be quite common in everyday Cornellian conversation, it is highly doubtful that one would ever come across many of our entries in any sort of text, Cornellian or otherwise. "Bare Nasties," a nickname of another entry, "Bear Necessities," is purely a spoken term. The nickname arises from feelings patrons have towards the store, but I stress that it is only a nickname. No document will refer to it in this manner; one will only find it in students' speech. "Floorcest" demonstrates how clipped forms of words enter our dictionary. Someone, at some point in time, combined the words "floor" and "incest" and then clipped them to form "floorcest." Again, this will not be found anywhere but in speech. "ARME," an acronym for Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics, is much less likely to be printed in a pamphlet than to be said by a student, who would pronounce it, "r-mee."

Because our dictionary relies so much on oral examples there are bound to be some spelling questions raised by its entries. "RPU," pronounced "r-pooh," shows this possible vagueness. "Standardeeve" does, too. Both of these entries could be spelled a number of different ways ("Are-poo" or "standard-deive," for example), but the person that entered them into the dictionary made a decision, based on what he or she heard in a conversation, about how he or she thought the word should be spelled. This is actually an inherent problem with trying to document any language because all languages are, originally, purely oral. Somewhere down the line, though, someone writes down a word he or she has heard spoken. Because this is the first time the word the word ever gets written, its spelling is solely up to the author. Therefore, personal taste plays a large role in many of the entries in this and any dictionary.

As might be expected from any dictionary about a college, a large portion of the entries describe the campus buildings. These are not simply limited to the actual names of the buildings but, in many cases, extend to nicknames for buildings. For instance, "Clara Dickson," the "largest Dormitory on campus, east of the Mississippi, and in the Ivy's," appears as an entry. It is, in itself, a term quite unique to Cornell. However, its nickname, "Big Dick," appears as an entry as well. This term is just as unique to Cornell and is probably more likely to be heard in conversation than the formal name, "Clara Dickson." The "Straight," referring to Willard Straight Hall, has become such a common nickname that it alone appears in reference to the building. We have also included terms particular to buildings that are particular to Cornell. Cornell is home to the "High Rises and Low Rises" that, in turn, are home to "suites." This dictionary aims to define what Cornell is, and one of the largest factors in this determination is the buildings of the campus.

Buildings alone cannot define a campus or a community; people are equally important. For this reason, we have done what most dictionaries have avoided doing and included proper names as entries. Anyone who has ever dined at Okies (see entry) knows all about "Chef Wang" and "Dave from Okenshields." There are certain people like these two that are famous throughout campus. Their personalities and/or crafts are an integral part of many students' days. There are students that simply cannot function without a stir-fry from Chef Wang and there are those who look forward to their daily chat with Dave from Okenshields. Most dictionaries shy away from any sort of pronoun, but when defining a college it is really the pronouns, the buildings and people, for example, that supply the personality.

Students obviously have a great impact on the character of Cornell, too; therefore, there are many entries referring to student life. "A cappella" is everywhere on campus. Freshmen are inundated with it during orientation week. Even prefroshes (see entry) are exposed to the varied a cappella groups Cornell has to offer. A cappella is almost like a religion here on campus. With our plethora of quads and fields, ultimate Frisbee, or simply "ultimate," is a favorite activity of Cornell students. Although both of these words are likely to be found outside of Cornell, they are extremely important in making Cornell what it is and therefore are included in our dictionary.

No discussion of a community located in Ithaca, NY, would be complete without alluding to the local weather. Simple, standard words like "sunny" have skewed meanings here. Our weather patterns are like no other city in the United States. Though it rarely rains heavily, there is almost always some sort of precipitation falling from the sky. Other communities would not know how to classify this, but our weather has conveniently been summed up into the word "ithicating." Weather is a large part of any Cornellian's day and our dictionary reflects this.

Many dictionaries boast that they have searched far and wide to find how words and phrases are used in society as a whole. We proudly state that we have done nothing of the sort in compiling this dictionary. We have stayed in one particular spot. We have not tried to find similarities between our community and the rest of the world. Rather, we have striven to discover what sets Cornell apart from anywhere else, what make us unique. We have know for some time that Cornellians are like no other people on Earth, and now we can show exactly how we are different.