On language, Princeton-style: Bicker

To the rest of the world, when people "bicker" they are engaged in a mini-quarrel, a squabble, if you will. But to those who are looking to be involved in five of the 11 clubs on Prospect, "Bicker" is anything but trivial. In a world of "inside ups" and "outside downs," "blackballs" and ratings, the idea is to make a good impression, not pick a bone with upperclassmen.

So why is Bicker called Bicker? Across clubs, the process involves lots of behaviors that could be seen as row-related, such as snowball throwing, yelling and grunting. The origin of Bicker, however, has nothing to do with the caveman-like zeal that occasionally manifests itself during these three days and more to do with good, clean rivalry.

Back in the day, otherwise known as circa 1850, before the lyrics to "Old Nassau" were politically corrected from "my boy" to "we sing," the clubs were all bicker. The dining hall had closed (don't we wish that would happen again) and students formed the first clubs at boarding houses to provide a (get this) less expensive alternative to boarding with families in Princeton. With toolish names like "Knights of the Round Table" and "Hollow Inn," 25 short-lived groups of students with especially entrepreneurial Ivy-league minds tried to rake in enough dough to keep their operations running. The members of the clubs competed against each other for new members who would prove to be the coolest of cats, so in those days it was the dudes who were already members who fought with each other. And the term bicker was born.

As time went by, more clubs formed, the swank older clubs gained more prestigious reputations and by 1906 two thirds to three quarters of upperclassmen were members of a club. The meaning of Bicker changed quickly to carry the slightly more foreboding connotation it does today. It might have been the clubs who vied for the most bickerees, but once the Bicker process began and prospective member Bob had chosen a club, it was Bob versus the rest of the bickerees in a "competition" of speed-date-esque encounters for those precious spots. The overt "bickering" remained an inter-club affair, but the sneakier bickering was a social version of what every sophomore underwent two years earlier to gain acceptance to Princeton — a contest to show that he or she was what the club "was looking for." Exactly what club members were looking for, however, was yet another point of contention, another topic of dissent and, well, bickering.

Although some sophomores got heated in the '50s and '60s and protested against Bicker by forming more independent clubs, the bicker process continues. The answer to why these clubs persist despite the formation of sign-in clubs is something many still bicker about. Exclusivity can be fun, some say. Others argue that Bicker is just a microcosm of the real world — we'll be trying to prove with quick first impressions how great we are for the rest of our lives and we might as well get good at it now.

Maybe it's because bicker fills some competitive void left by our less prevalent Greek life, maybe it's about perpetuating a certain club personality by keeping membership selective, or maybe it's a manifestation of some Darwinian form of competition that goes on all across the world. Our competition, however, isn't a matter of survival, of life-or-death-I-have-to-spear-you-or-I-won't-get-to-eat-this-antelope magnitude. It's fun and pretty dinky in the grand scheme of things, a frivolous kind of collegiate contention so perfectly captured by the name it was given more than one hundred years ago: bicker. Laura Berner is a sophomore from Rye, N.Y. She can be reached at lberner@princeton.edu.