Strangers’ Place, subs. (Stonyhurst: obsolete).—The guest-rooms. When a boy had friends staying in the College he was said to be “in the STRANGERS’ PLACE.” Cf. Place.
Straw, subs. 1. (Harrow).—A straw hat worn by the whole school all the year round, except on Sundays and at games. The ELEVEN STRAW = a speckled black-and-white straw hat worn by the Cricket Eleven.
2. (Rugby).—For two years after his first term (during which a silk hat or “topper” was de rigueur) a boy wears a black-and-white speckled straw hat with a black ribbon. Each House has its own distinctive ribbon. At the end of his third year a boy could “take” his “white straw,” but he was not expected to do this unless he were a Swell (q.v.).
Also see Clean Straw.
Strawer, subs. (general).—A straw hat.
Stretch, subs. (University).—A walk.
Strive, verb (Christ’s Hospital).—To write with care: see Scrub. E.g. “Copy this!” “Shall I STRIVE, Sir, or ‘scrub’ it down?”
Stub, verb (Felsted).—To kick a football about.
1888. Felstedian, Dec., p. 98. Now these hollow globes [footballs] flying through the air, collide with their sandals, and this colliding they call STUBBING. Ibid. (Nov. 1896, 153). Boys are fined for STUBBING on a forty higher than their own.
1895. Felstedian, June, p. 104. Among plausible etymologies it is attempted to derive STUB from “the sound made by a stubbed football.” ... But the word STUB deserves to be rescued from its fate. I had always imagined it to be an East Anglian word for “kick,” but it is, to the best of my belief, obsolete in England.... A contributor to Notes and Queries, writing on a totally different subject, quoted the following words from a speech by an American judge: “As a barefooted boy I STUBBED my chapped toes over a rough New England farm.” [Stub is commonly dialectical, in the sense of “to grub.”]