Traditions
Like many other prep schools, the Dragon has a number of long-standing traditions, among the more notable being the use of nicknames for teachers (to their faces — 'Inky', 'Guv', 'Smudge', 'Putty', 'Moocow', 'Lofty', 'Jumbo', 'Splash','PABS', etc.) and calling female teachers 'Ma' (e.g., "Ma Jones"). Previously, some male teachers had been called 'Pa' (e.g., Mr Wyeth-Webb, who was known affectionately as 'Pa Wa-Wa'). This nickname was feminised when male staff members' wives became important figures in their own right (e.g., 'Ma Wa-Wa'). Ultimately, the masculine form fell out of common use, but the female form has remained popular. Temporary teaching assistants (usually in their late teens or early twenties, often natives of former British colonies) are known as 'stooges'. As is the case at most boarding institutions, the Dragon has developed its own unique lexicon besides, incorporating a slang particular to the school ('pill' meaning ball, 'with you' meaning pass, and so on).
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Famous quotes containing the word traditions:
“And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“But generally speaking philistinism presupposes a certain advanced state of civilization where throughout the ages certain traditions have accumulated in a heap and have started to stink.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Napoleon never wished to be justified. He killed his enemy according to Corsican traditions [le droit corse] and if he sometimes regretted his mistake, he never understood that it had been a crime.”
—Guillaume-Prosper, Baron De Barante (1782–1866)