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Hi!
✨It’s time for English✨
At last, I'm back with posts for you! Today you can read some interesting and unusual facts about the world's best universities (and of course, I've supplemented them with new vocabulary) 🩷
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)1️⃣MIT students are famous for
meticulous pranks. The institute's Great Dome has been turned into R2-D2 from Star Wars, a giant ring from The Lord of the Rings, and Iron Man's helmet. The administration does not punish students as long as they do not damage the structures.
2️⃣The MIT campus hides an
entangled network of underground tunnels which connects buildings, laboratories, and utility spaces. Access is strictly controlled, but legends of an "underground city" where scientific life bustles are still popular among students.
3️⃣In Simmons Hall there is a
quirky tradition: students remove the doors from their rooms and turn them into works of art — painting them, decorating them with collages and installations. The doors are then stored in the basement as an artistic chronicle of generations.
University of Cambridge1️⃣At Trinity Hall there is an ancient initiation ritual for the "wine society": the initiate must drink port into which a red-hot silver spoon has been plunged — a seemingly
perilous ordeal. If the spoon has not melted and the drink is consumed, the candidate is accepted. The tradition is several centuries old.
2️⃣In Cambridge colleges (especially at King's), lawns are considered
sacrosanct and off-limits to students. Only Fellows (members of the college council) are permitted to walk on them. Violation incurs a fine, creating a distinctive symbol of "class" boundaries.
3️⃣In the 1920s, a
recondite "Society for the Love of Long Words" emerged at Cambridge. Its members competed in inventing elaborate terms. The most famous result was the word floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters), meaning "the habit of regarding something as worthless."
University of Oxford1️⃣In Oxford's oldest library, chains still survive, securing valuable books just as in the Middle Ages. A reader may take a book but may not carry it out of the hall. The tradition of taking an
inviolable oath upon entry (in English or Latin), promising not to kindle fire and not to damage the volumes, also endures.
2️⃣A tortoise named Timothy was
fortuitously found aboard a Turkish vessel during the Crimean War, later came to Britain, and lived out her days at Christ Church. She lived for over 160 years and became a living symbol of the college.
3️⃣Traditional evening meals in academic gowns by candlelight are an
integral part of Oxford culture. Latecomers are not admitted, and one may not leave the table until the meal officially ends (including a Latin grace). Because of this, students prudently plan a visit to the lavatory before the long event.
4️⃣Around the halfway mark of a student's
arduous course, colleges hold a celebratory Halfway Hall. By tradition, wine is also poured for those students who dropped out or were expelled — they are called the "halfway ghosts."
5️⃣Oxford's May Balls take place in June, after exams. The ball at Magdalen College begins at 6:00 pm and lasts until 6:00 am. The
zenith is the choir singing a hymn from the bell tower at dawn, after which students in tuxedos and evening gowns head off to breakfast on champagne and strawberries.
📎
vocabulary 📎
🌸meticulous — very careful and with great attention to every detail.
🌼entangled — twisted together or caught in something.
🌸quirky — unusual in an attractive and interesting way.
🌼perilous — extremely dangerous.
🌸sacrosanct — considered too important to be changed or criticized.
🌼recondite — not known about by many people and very difficult to understand.
🌸inviolable — that must be respected and not attacked or destroyed.
🌼fortuitously — in a way that happens by chance rather than being planned.
🌸integral — necessary and important as a part of a whole.
🌼arduous — difficult, needing a lot of effort and energy.
🌸zenith — the best or most successful point or time.
