Starting Fresh

In keeping with the widespread effort to cleanse the English language of any word that might offend anybody, any animal or, for that matter, any thing, officials at Nebraska Wesleyan University have decided to avoid "freshman," deemed by a sufficient number of people to be a filthy, sexist term if there ever was one. "Freshperson" was presumably considered an insulting substitute, and so, perhaps, were "freshindividual," "freshhuman," "freshgirl" and "freshboy." Henceforth, a first-year student at Nebraska Wesleyan will be a "first-year student." A second-year student will ; continue to be called "sophomore" -- from the Greek sophos (wise) and moros (foolish). The adjective form, sophomoric, may at times be used to modify "college official."