Things You Only Hear at Exeter
By CHLOE LIND ‘27 and MELIA THIBAULT ‘27
It is no secret that Exonians have their own less-than-intuitive lexicon. Dickeys? 333 papers? P-Raw? What in the world is this vortex of verbiage all about — and more importantly, who began the trend of integrating it into daily speech? For those who think Exeter is an elitist pressure cooker, you should know that we speak like this on a daily. The purpose of this guide is to aid those unfamiliar with our idiosyncratic idiom of elite academia in comprehending it — you’re welcome.
1) “I got a Dickey.”
Dickeys — the bane of every Exonian’s existence – unless, of course, you’re one of the few preps who’s never received a Dickey or fatigued a class. You make the unfortunate mistake of obtaining more than three, and you’re on Stricts(apologies, more Exeter lingo) for two weeks.
Possible Translations:
“I slept through my 8 a.m. French class and the teacher actually remembered to mark me absent on Blackbaud (the other three times he forgot).”
“I missed a random prep-wide assembly on what to ship to the mailroom and what would be better off shipped to your home address.”
“I ran out of fatigues and fell asleep in the common room.”
2) “My 333 final paper is due tomorrow.”
The notorious 333 U.S. history sequence is perhaps the most dreaded sequence of classes in the Exeter course catalog. It entails tirelessly skimming through yellowing pages of badly photocopied primary sources, a Google search history littered with names of colonial big-shots who died of Typhoid fever, and a free topic final paper that sucks the souls out of those unfortunate enough to be assigned the task.
Possible Translations:
“I procrastinated for the entire term and had to scramble to come up with a topic last night. The title? ‘The Electoral College and Chuck E. Cheese Ticket Dispensers: A Study in Arbitrary Reward Systems.’” I mean, sure, whatever gets you the A…
“My paper has a thesis. Does it make sense? Not necessarily. Did the English teacher at the Writing Center emphasize that it contained enough vague references to ‘broader implications of American History’ to sound profound? Absolutely.” Always trust the Writing Center tutors when you’re in a bind.
“All that’s missing is the annotated five-page bibliography worth 15 percent of my essay grade.”`