ACUHO-I News Blog

A member recently asked this question. I thought it was interesting, and that the answer is too. Hopefully you feel the same.

Does anyone know of any articles or studies as to when/why the lingo changed from dorm to res hall (to living center, etc)?

As far as I know, there aren’t any articles specifically on this (please post in the comments if you know otherwise). However, this is the answer I sent.

Below I  pasted the definitions from the online etymology dictionary, to which I’m referring here.  (I love the Online Etymology Dictionary, by the way. It is fabulous.)

Basically, “dormitory” comes from the word dormir which means to sleep or to become dormant. I’ve included some related definitions as well; cubicle (derived from a word that meant “to lie down, to bend oneself”), was the space in which someone slept in the dormitory. The word “cemetery” was derived from words related to dormitory, as it is a “sleeping place.”

The references to folding oneself into cubicles and death are likely the reason “dormitory” fell out of favor.

Further below, there’s the historical meanings for the words “residence” and “hall” which have much grander and more home-like pedigrees than that of “dormitory.” These connotations are what universities and colleges refer to when explaining why those buildings are residence halls, not dormitories. (A number of examples can be found at the link.)

I think the terms “living-learning” and similar, to specifically denote the educational aspects of residence halls, were used more commonly following the publishing of the Residential Nexus, which argued for a strong educational presence in the residence halls. As this is also a way to show the benefits of housing to students, parents and the administration, housing pros emphasize the home-like and educational aspects of housing, rather than the sleeping, dormant aspect.

EDIT: Kevin Guidry’s comment about an article in the Talking Stick sent me on a hunt through late-80s copies of the magazine. After flipping through many pages of–it must be said–ill-advised editorial, advertisement and fashion decisions, I found the article to which he was likely referring. Here it is: TalkingStick87 ResHallsDorms

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Online dating sites used to be the purview of middle-aged adults. College-age people relied on the usual young-adult social scene — bars, clubs, parties — to meet.

This is no longer so; Web sites specifically for certain institutions or college students now allow for anonymous flirting, semi-anonymous come-ons, or rambling musings on attraction and rejection. Dating sites allow students to meet others with the same stated aims as theirs — hooking up, relationships, or otherwise. Flirting site allow them to put out feelers to see if the object of a crush might respond in kind. No longer is asking someone out — and risking rejection — the only way to make a flirtatious relationship into something more. Traditional dates faded in popularity years ago, but even then, any relationship required some sort of in-person overture. Now it’s possible to delay or avoid the pain of outright rejection.

Is this a natural progression for digital natives, or are they incapable of forming relationships in-person and making themselves vulnerable in order to do it? Is the situation somewhere between those two extremes? Does it even matter?