Princeton language style: Pequod

Every semester we pay an inordinate amount of money for our textbooks, and every semester we fork over an equally ridiculous quantity of dough for those photocopies bound in heinously bright paper known as Pequod packets.

One would think that after standing in line for what seems like hours to look up the codes of the packets I need, filling out packet slips and finally cringing as I pay for the silly readers, I would fill the mindless time wondering what Pequod means. Not until just now.

Many initially mistake the word for P-quad, which seems almost logical since the P could stand for Princeton, and we do have the E-quad. However, because the packets aren't sold in any kind of quadrangle most soon realize they've misheard. Then one thinks, well, maybe it's an acronym. The P for Princeton idea would still hold, but how many words that could apply to photocopies start with Q?

The true origin of Pequod lies in the story of the printing company. In 1989, some overachieving Princeton students started a textbook-selling enterprise that became a Princeton copying center and eventually a big-time business.

Duh, you might be thinking to yourself. But what about the actual word, Pequod? Although 'Pequod' was the name of a Native American tribe in Massachusetts, the copying company is named after the ship in Melville's "Moby Dick." If the captain's name was Ahab and the whale's name was Moby Dick, how surprised can we really be that the ship's name was Pequod?

Double duh, you could be thinking. "Moby Dick's" a classic, so of course I know what the name of the ship was. Regardless, the real question is why did the Princeton students who founded the company decide to name their copying business after a boat? Because the ship was painted black and covered in white bones and teeth, evoking images of black and white photocopied pages? Because the company deals with "great white whales" of packets? Well, since pretty much every Pequod packet I've ever gotten has been some atrocious neon hue, I don't think those theories hold up.

Is it because Moby Dick's land setting of Nantucket is where many of our students' "summers" are, and the copying business founders were collar-poppers who enjoyed a little whale pattern à la Vineyard Vines in their lives? Possible, but this is 1989 we're talking about. What if one of the entrepreneurs had hippy parents and was named Ahab? Is the company named after a ship because Pequod is in the business of packet-making, and packet refers not only to a bound group of papers but also to a kind of boat? Did they just like the alliteration of Pequod and packet, especially since it involves Princetonian Ps?

Maybe the founders just wanted to be annoyingly literary and mildly esoteric? I wouldn't put that past the Princeton kids, and since an arts magazine at Colby bears the same name, I'd say the "we're as erudite as the day is long" conjecture is a pretty sound one. The fact that a pizza company in Chicago also chose the name, however, kills that idea too.

I guess we'll never really know why those crazy kids chose to name their enterprise after Melville's boat, but one thing is certain: when we're all up reading obscure documents at 3 a.m. on Mondays, it feels like the packets could not be more like the "Moby Dick" vessel that "would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her." Laura Berner is a sophomore from Rye, N.Y. She can be reached at lberner@princeton.edu.