Whether you’re on your way to 574, planning for next year’s pumpkining, or about to hit up the Tisch fishbowl, you’re probably surrounded by the communal lingo of the Tufts student body, whether you realize it or not.
Among the tight-knit community of the Tufts bubble, countless abbreviations and acronyms have arisen for campus buildings, staff or phenomena. I’ve lovingly dubbed this vernacular “Jumbo Jargon.”
To capture this moment in Tufts linguistics, a Qualtrics survey was shared from Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 on social media, Slack and through personal connections, leading to a total of 158 completed responses. A quick disclaimer: The generalizability of this data is limited, given it represents only a small fraction of the student body.
The survey began with a series of images of various Tufts academic buildings, dorms and dining locations. Respondents were asked to identify the images using the terms they would use in casual conversation.
First point of interest: Not a single person, when shown a photo of the Joyce Cummings Center, said they would regularly call it by its full name. Instead, the most common nicknames were “JCC” (74%), “Cum Center” (10%) or simply “Cum” (14%). Similarly, Pax et Lox was identified by its full name by only one person, with 97% of others referring to it simply as “Pax.”
There were several name differences that may have been largely generational, namely “Courts” (68%) vs. “Mods” (26%) for the Court at Professors Row and “SEC” (67%) vs. “TTC” (33%) for the Tsungming Tu Complex. Both split votes reflect the buildings’ respective name changes between 2023 and 2024.
Interestingly, 14% of people referred to the Academic Quad simply as “the Quad.” However, less than 2% referred to the Reservoir Quad the same way, possibly suggesting that the former is a more widely visited or familiar space.
Tufts is also known to be a school of many acronyms; you’ll find yourself hearing more strings of letters than full names here on the Hill. But when we shout out these initials, do we know what we’re really talking about?
Survey respondents were given a list of acronyms and asked to identify what they stood for. If respondents did not know an answer, they could leave a question blank, but many chose to guess — not always correctly, but still representative of that experimental Jumbo spirit.
Some of the most-used university abbreviations were interestingly some of the most unknown or misidentified in the survey. SIS, the site used by all students for course registration, transcript requests and housing information, was correctly identified as “Student Information Systems” by 32% of respondents, but misidentified as “Student Information Services” by a close 25%.
But some of the more student-culture-oriented acronyms were more frequently identified correctly, like BNAT (“big name at Tufts”) at 52% and TMC (“Tufts Mountain Club”) at 70%.
Unfortunately for suit-wearing campus icon Professor David John Proctor, his initials — DJP — were the least correctly identified acronym, with only 18% correct responses. Those who have taken a class with Proctor would likely recognize this shorthand email sign-off, but it didn’t seem to ring a bell for many others.
However, when shown a photo of another campus leader, President Sunil Kumar, nearly all respondents recognized him. Furthermore, 72% referred to him simply as “Sunil” — how many college students can say they’re on a first-name basis with their university president?
At the end of the survey, respondents mentioned multiple pieces of ‘Jumbo Jargon’ not explicitly asked about in the survey. Several cited a Tufts classic: various plays on the Tufts mascot name – “Jumbosmash,” “Jumboning,” “Jumbomber.”
There were also multiple respondents who pointed out that SMFA, the acronym for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, is often pronounced “smi-fuh” or “smu-fuh,” especially by those studying at the school.
It’s interesting to consider how Tufts lingo has developed and changed over time, even within the past few years. Five years ago, you would have only heard the Courts referred to as the “Mods” — but since it was renamed, fewer people are familiar with the term.
How long until SEC becomes an obsolete acronym? Or the Jumbomber goes into a file with other myths of Tufts past, right next to the Naked Quad Run and the Wren Creeper?
We can speculate all we want, but what’s most interesting is how this Jumbo Jargon is used now — how it brings together an entire community of students through a shared coded language. However you say them, these shared shorthands — affectionate, awkward and occasionally obscene — are what turn a university into a community.
Now that you’ve finished reading this, you should go refresh yourself with a Cinny Vanilly or TropiKale smoothie. And I’ll leave you with one last thing — however you say it:
Roll ’Bos! (38%)
Go ’Bos! (30%)
Go Jumbos! (18%)
’Sko ’Bos! (4%)
Trunks Up! (2%)
