alley You live in one. If you care to, you can challenge another alley to interesting competitions.
ASCIT Van If you see Jeremiah, tell him that the copier is out of paper.
B & G Also known as Building and Grounds, or more correctly, Physical Plant Department. An assemblage of skilled craftsmen, B & G maintains a calm atmosphere of inefficiency. They hold world records in per capita coffee consumption and supervisor : worker ratios.
blue slips Caltech's underachiever awards. Popular door decorations.
BRDC (Big Red Drop Card) A medium-sized, white card which, when signed by the appropriate people, enables you to go off and spend the rest of the term (year, life, whatever) touring the country, or cowering under your desk. see also flame.
Bridge A home for wayward trolls.
B.S. What you get from Caltech.
cannon "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Sigmund Freud
daihatsu Deadly death go-carts which try to run you down as you walk on the maze of paths around campus.
The Ride of the Valkyries Wagner's greatest hit. Popular Tech dance tune. Play it loud and often, frosh!
flame The result of overloading an undergrad's heat shields through academic friction.
Fleming cannon . . . sometimes not.
flick The art of taking the greatest amount of time to accomplish as little as possible.
Foster's Donuts What do you think that $20 a term is for?
Interhouse Used to be the only reason a sane high school student would want to come to Tech. What's your excuse?
MFWNMPR Tough on the feet, tougher on the eyes.
Millikan Library A massive erection in the center of campus honoring the last great honest scientist.
mountains A fearsome apparition in the northern skies rarely seen by mortal man.
pond Like showering, but more crayfish.
pop A common mispronunciation of the word soda.
pumpkin Orange spheroid used in an annual demonstration of gravity and cryogenics using the Millikan Gravitational Accelerator. Last year the blue flash made an appearance.
punt "If I go to sleep now, I can finish my homework tomorrow."
random The universal adjective that lets people know you are a Techer.
recursion CS mantra.
RF Real Fun.
Security Savage fighters and super sleuths, experts at karate, known for killing people with shotguns and axes and strangling them, poisoning and drowning them. They may also ask to see your Tech ID.
shaft 1. What you get if you step into an elevator from the 31st floor when it is on the 32nd floor. Also received all year long in AMa 95. 2. The classic blaxploitation film.
showering A personal ritual of cleansing. Some people can't seem to figure this out on their own.
spaz Synthetic meat that you find in small metal containers. Oops, that's Spam.
stack "Hmm... Something about my room is not quite the same today."
steam tunnels Subterranean network connecting most of campus.
throat A troll who trolls while you are not trolling in order to get ahead of you.
Tommy Like the Bible, but more expensive. It comes in two volumes, called Tommy I and Tommy II.
Tommy's run Like relativity without the physics. Not to be confused with Tommy I or Tommy II.
troll Someone who wastes his life being productive and actually graduates with a decent GPA.
UASH You flick, you flame, UASH.
Whisper Chipper B&G's dainty log crunching device. When used at 8 a.m., it is about as "whisper" as Techers are "chipper" at the time.