GENTLEMAN-COMMONER. The highest class of Commoners at Oxford
University. Equivalent to a Cambridge Fellow-Commoner.
Gentlemen Commoners "are eldest sons, or only sons, or men already in possession of estates, or else (which is as common a case as all the rest put together), they are the heirs of newly acquired wealth,—sons of the nouveaux riches"; they enjoy a privilege as regards the choice of rooms; associate at meals with the Fellows and other authorities of the College; are the possessors of two gowns, "an undress for the morning, and a full dress-gown for the evening," both of which are made of silk, the latter being very elaborately ornamented; wear a cap, covered with velvet instead of cloth; pay double caution money, at entrance, viz. fifty guineas, and are charged twenty guineas a year for tutorage, twice the amount of the usual fee.—Compiled from De Quincey's Life and Manners, pp. 278-280.
GET UP A SUBJECT. See SUBJECT.
This was the fourth time I had begun Algebra, and essayed with no weakness of purpose to get it up properly.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 157.
GILL. The projecting parts of a standing collar are, from their situation, sometimes denominated gills.
But, O, what rage his maddening bosom fills!
Far worse than dust-soiled coat are ruined "gills."
Poem before the Class of 1828, Harv. Coll., by J.C.
Richmond, p. 6.
GOBBLE. At Yale College, to seize; to lay hold of; to appropriate; nearly the same as to collar, q.v.
Alas! how dearly for the fun they paid,
Whom the Proffs gobbled, and the Tutors too.
The Gallinipper, Dec. 1849.
I never gobbled one poor flat,
To cheer me with his soft dark eye, &c.
Yale Tomahawk, Nov. 1849.
I went and performed, and got through the burning,
But oh! and alas! I was gobbled returning.
Yale Banger, Nov. 1850.