Origin of

[relic_11]

Tomorow I will officialy be a college freshman. Which got me thinking, where did the term “freshman” come from? And “sophmore”? Junior and senior make more sense to me, but the first two have me stumped. Aleviate my ignorance, Oh Teeming Millions!

[Derleth]

I’ll get this one.
[ul]
[li]Freshman: Fresh out of previous education, untutored in the more advanced subjects taught at the school.[/li][li]Sophomore: Literally, a ‘wise fool’ (Latin: Sophos-wise and Moros-fool), meaning he has drunk but little of the knowledge offered.[/li][li]Junior: Younger than a senior.[/li][li]Senior: Oldest class, has seniority over all others.[/li][/ul]

[bibliophage]

Sophomore is not, as is usually reported, from the Greek roots sophos [clever] and moros [foolish]. Rather, it is a variation of the obsolete English word “sophumer”, one who engages in “sophum”. “Sophum” itself is a variation of “sophism” [specious reasoning].

If it wasn’t clear, the words senior and junior are the Latin words for “older” and “younger”.

[Derleth]

Oh. OK. Thanks.

[Lance_Turbo]

*Originally posted by bibliophage *
**Sophomore is not, as is usually reported, from the Greek roots sophos [clever] and moros [foolish]. Rather, it is a variation of the obsolete English word “sophumer”, one who engages in “sophum”. “Sophum” itself is a variation of “sophism” [specious reasoning].
**

The first three dictionaries I checked disagree with you. Do you have a cite for that?

[Kat]

*Originally posted by Lance Turbo *
The first three dictionaries I checked disagree with you. Do you have a cite for that?

I do.
Sophomore ‘second-year student’[17] is an alteration of an earlier sophumer ‘arguer,’ a derivative of sophum, which is a now defunct variant of sophism. (Dictionary of Word Origins)

Oddly enough, the Sophos/Moros origin is not mentioned, not even to point out that the commonly-held belief is incorrect.

[Perderabo]

Here is an on-line cite supporting bibliophage’s opinion on the origin of sophomore.

[Sofa_King]

Unless of course you are going to be attending UVa. In that case you may still be a “first-year man”.

However, I’m told that archaic term is now falling into disuse.

[LazarusLong42]

*Originally posted by Sofa King *
Unless of course you are going to be attending UVa. In that case you may still be a “first-year man”.

Or a liberal women’s college, where the term “freshman” is, well, often too masculine. At Mt. Holyoke, where an ex-gf attended, the lowest class were known as “first-years” or “firsties” for short.

LL

[dtilque]

I once posted this etymology of sophomore to the SDMB, but for inexplicable reasons, it got a less than positive response.

This word comes from the days when college students would have to take a train from the West to the East Coast to go to school. Because they were just poor students, they usually had to take the least desirable seats on the train. Because the heat from the sun made them uncomfortable, these seats were on the south side of the train which were on the right side going to college and the left side coming home. So their tickets were stamped SOPH for Starboard Out, Port Home and students were sometimes called “sophs”.

After a while, it was noted that second year students tended to be the poorest college students. So they had to travel SOPH MORE than the others, thus they became known as sophomores.

[matt_mcl]

At McGill, we don’t use those terms. Since Quebec has cégep (a two year college equivalent to Grade 12 and freshman year), our BAs are three years, which we call U1, U2, and U3. If a student comes from outside Quebec (and formerly Ontario), they have to take U0 (a.k.a. freshman year). Confusing the matter is the fact that the SSMU hold “frosh” for all incoming students, whether U0 or U1.