USNA News Article
Enhance Your Naval Academy Vocabulary
July 10, 2012
Many of these words may seem familiar, but you won't find these definitions in the dictionary.
| AQUA ROCK | A non-swimmer; one in training for submarine duty but lacking the submarine. |
| BAGGER | He who sets the bar and sets it low. |
| BILGE | To make another look bad for one’s own personal gain; to cut the ground from under another’s feet. |
| BLUE MAGNET | Standard issue blanket that adorns every midshipmen's RACK; its powers of attraction are nearly impossible to resist. |
| CAKE | Anything that is easy; dessert for which baggers have a recipe. |
| CHIT | Protection from on high to take privileges not rated. |
| CHOKE | To clutch or blank out. |
| CHOP | To double-time; outdated plebe mass transit system. |
| CIVILIAN | A day with no classes. |
| CRABTOWN | Annapolis, a small village on the banks of the Naval Academy. |
| DRAG | To escort; one who is escorted. |
| FORTY-YEAR SWIM | Second class swimming marathon lasting forty continuous minutes. Now shortened to thirty minutes. |
| FRIED | Written up for conduct offense; the way your skin feels after meeting with the Deputy Commandant. |
| GEEK | One who pursues academics to an excessive extent; one who types letters home and corrects those he receives. |
| GOUGE | The answers or method of accomplishment to a test or any such activity; a collection of answers that even the profs understand. Beware: live by the gouge, die by the gouge. |
| HAPPINESS FACTOR | The number of days of leave divided by the number of days until leave, an equation that even the bull majors understand. |
| MOTHER “B” | Home of the Brigade, Bancroft Hall. |
| PLEBE | Fourth Classman; that insignificant thing that gets all the sympathy and chow from home. |
| RACK | Bed; the ultimate goal of most midshipmen. |
| SANDBLOWER | Any short person; he who walks at low altitudes. |
| SEA LAWYER | One who tries to get out of a fry by trivial technicalities, whose favorite expression is “But I thought ... ” when in fact, he didn’t. |
| SMACK | Obsequious (and one who looks it up). |
| STEAM | Thermodynamics. |
| STRIPER | Member of the Class Chain of Command. |
| SWEAT | One who worries excessively about everything. One who brassos his glasses. His room smells like Pledge. |
| WOOP | Gray inmate of that isolated government institution which overlooks the Hudson. |
| ZOOMIE | One of our collegiate buddies who lives at the government play school in Colorado Springs and wears a blue bus driver cap. |
