Notions (Winchester College)
A notion is "any word, custom, person or place peculiarly known to Wykehamists", pupils of Winchester College.
[4] Most of these fell into disuse in the 20th century, so that by 1980, the number of notions in use was according to the former headmaster of Winchester College James Sabben-Clare "really quite small".
"College Men" are pupils with scholarships, living in the school's medieval buildings, while "Commoners" are all the rest.
[14] A few notions have historically been shared with other schools: for instance Eton once used words like "div" (class or form[a])[15] and "poser" (examiner, as used in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer),[16] and Radley uses "don" for teacher.
[22] The importance given to notions at Winchester caused them to be recorded carefully over a long period, so that compared to schools like Westminster or Eton which had similarly rich and old traditions, Winchester's notions are now uniquely accessible to scholars, who have begun to examine them both as words and as the customs of "an institution notoriously eccentric even within living memory and almost unimaginably so before the reforms of 1867".
[4] Wrench suggests that Lob[ster] for "to cry" may come from Hampshire dialect "louster", to make an unpleasant noise.
[13] Such notions could be assembled into phrases – for example, the Dons' Common Room Notice Board became Do Co Ro No Bo.
[36] It used to be the only time that the whole school regularly assembles together; a former headmaster, James Sabben-Clare, wrote that each year, the head explained this fact "to disbelieving parents of first-year boys".
[38] It was held after the first two weeks of the autumn term, and was designed to test new boys' familiarity with the manners and customs of the school.
In 1872, under the headmaster George Ridding, "tunding", beatings given by a prefect (a senior pupil), using a ground-ash across the shoulders, were still permitted.
Whyte,"[40] beat the senior boy of Turner's house, William Macpherson, for refusing to attend a notions test.
Ridding "less than whole-hearted[ly]"[40] limited the prefects' power to beat to twelve cuts, to be administered only on the back.
[41] The Dictionary of National Biography wrote in 1912 that "The incident was trivial, but the victim's father appealed to The Times, and an animated, though in general ill-informed, correspondence followed.
[44] The College man and natural historian Frank Buckland described his own Pempe experience of 1839:[45] So he sent me to another boy, who said he had lent his Pempe moron proteron, but he passed me on to a third, he on to a fourth: so I was running about all over the college till quite late, in a most terrible panic of mind, till at last a good-natured præfect said 'Construe it [from Greek], you little fool.'
