A mystery relocated

[mrissa]

So in the middle of the University of Minnesota rouser there is the inexplicable hyphenate ski-u-mah. Why? We do not know. I blame the Gay Nineties; they are convenient and easily blamed for Stuff in general and University Football Stuff in specific.

But now! Tonight we had dinner in an Italian restaurant, and there was something called chocolate hazelnut schiuma on the menu. "What is schiuma, please?" I asked our waitress, pronouncing it as though it was shumai without the final vowel twist. She said, "Ski-u-mah is a kind of very light mousse, almost a foam."

So now we know. Foam, Minnesota! Foam!

I did not have schiuma, even though it is apparently our Secret State Dessert. I had a dark chocolate brownie with pistachio and raspberry. And now you know.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Is a rouser like a fight song? (Ours starts with "hullabaloo, caneck, caneck," and includes the couplet "We're going to beat you all to/Chigaroogarem, chigaroogarem, rough tough real stuff Texas A&M" so I'm fully in favor of blaming the Gay Nineties for American Football Stuff.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, a rouser is a fight song.

The Gustie rouser is my alma mater's meme warfare upon its alumni, but I suppose many of them are. It doesn't contain nonsense words. I wish it did; that might have inhibited the tendency to quote it as prose at us after the tornado.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

They did? How horrid!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The line, "Gusties will shine tonight," was often very earnestly quoted in speech and in campus mailings. Probably someone would have gotten homicidal if we hadn't been so busy vomiting.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That's right up there with "True to each other, as Aggies can be" after the bonfire fell. (And then the administration weaseled out of getting sued for negligence, tra-la.)

If you care, there's a Klingon filk of that, which I shall happily sing you in two days. *squee*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Our administration was an absolute pack of weasels. Whatever the plural noun for weasels is, they were it. Whenever a natural disaster hits somewhere now, I have the horrible thought that there is someone in power doing their best to make it worse for the people who are already suffering and trying to pull together.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Oh, so very true...the city council here has been pretty good so far, but three firefighters from the next town over just got arrested for looting. SRSLY, GUYS, WTF.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Max Schulman apparently understood Ski-U-Mah better than many.

K.

[brooksmoses]

Hey, at least the football team didn't end up being known as the Minnesota Schiumas. (This is, approximately, why the Virginia Tech Hokies are the Hokies....)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hoooookie then.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, which in this case seems pretty accurate, you can indeed blame the Gay Nineties.

[kitgordon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! I'll have to pass it along to all the freshmen I've been orienting. See you at 4th Street.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

My father taught for many years at school whose cheer, developed back when Gentlemen Scholars Did Not use Bad Language, went "Rip 'em up, tear 'em up, Busy Bee Laundry*!

The University of Chicago, before it dropped football as a pastime unworthy of Gentlemen Scholars, used a cheer that started "Thucydides, Themistocles, the Peloponnesian War..." According to someone who cares enough to collect the set (http://home.uchicago.edu/~ahkissel/cheers.html), they have another that abuses Planck's constant.



*Local business owned by devoted alumnus. It has been replaced by "Rip 'em up, tear 'em up, Give 'em hell, Miners!", with the loss of a certain amount of local charm.