Oxbridge rivalry: Encyclopedia II - Oxbridge rivalry - Inter-university insults

Oxbridge rivalry - Inter-university insults

Over the years, students at both institutions have coined a variety of insults for each other. Oxonians (Oxford people) refer to Cambridge as "the North Fens Polytechnic", whereas those from Cambridge refer to Oxford as "Cowley Polytechnic" (polytechnics in Britain were considered to be an inferior higher education institution; Cambridge is on the southern edge of The Fens of eastern England, and Cowley is an industrial area of Oxford).

Oxford students sometimes refer to their Cambridge counterparts as "Tabs", short for Cantabrigians (Cambridge people), and sing songs such as "I'd rather be a leper than a Tab" or the rather ruder song, "Tabs are for flying".

In turn, Cantabrigians could refer to Oxford as being "a complete dump" (a line from a Blackadder episode, uttered by Stephen Fry, himself a Cambridge graduate). Cambridge has no widely-accepted term for Oxonians that parallels the popularity of "Tabs". It has been postulated that this may reflect a more obvious feeling of rivalry upon the part of Oxonians, with Cantabrigians less concerned, or perhaps simply a more roundly-developed Oxford sense of humour. A popular song at Cambridge features the chorus, "I'd rather be at Oxford than at John's", whose title is meant to insult St John's College in Cambridge, which is a sports rival of many of the other Cambridge colleges.

The official colour of Oxford is dark blue, whereas Cambridge's is light blue (although it is often described as Eton or duck egg blue due to the colour of its sports blazers). Since Cambridge is younger than Oxford, Oxonians sometimes refer to Cambridge as a "pale imitation of the real thing" while Cantabrigians refer to Oxford as "the Dark Side", or a "beta test for Cambridge".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Inter-university insults", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki