Laura from Ithaca, New York, is puzzling over the lyrics to Cornell University’s fight song, “Give My Regards to Davy,” sung to the tune of George M. Cohan’s “Give My Regards to Broadway.” The lyrics include the word pikers, specifically, Tell all the pikers on the hill that I’ll be back again. Although piker has had a number of meanings, including “a small-time gambler” and “a man who won’t spend much money on a date,” in this context, the term probably means a “shirker” or “poor student.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Language Mysteries in Fight Song Lyrics, Like “Piker””
Hi there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi Martha, this is Laura. I’m calling from Ithaca, New York.
Hey Laura, welcome to the show.
I have a question about a word I found in the Cornell fight song.
The word is piker. It’s supposed to mean freshman, but I can’t find any other place where piker is used like that except in Ithaca, New York, in the fight song.
Okay, gotta sing the fight song for us.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.
I’m sorry.
The line is, tell all the pikers on the hill that I’ll be back again.
The song’s Give My Regards to Davey, and he’s saying goodbye to the administrator who kicked him out after he got caught drinking too much.
Okay, gotcha.
Oh, my.
I don’t know what it has to do with playing sports, but that’s our fight song.
Okay, okay.
So first, let’s establish a couple things here. One is piker has had a lot of meanings, and slang is really hard to tease out.
So given those two things, because we’re going to get a lot of people who are going to email or call and say, piker means somebody who places small bets at a gambling table.
Yes, we know.
But there’s our other pikers as well, and we’re going to talk about the other pikers.
So let’s talk a little bit about this fight song.
It was written in 1905. It is to the tune of Give My Regards to Broadway, written by George Cohan for his 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones.
Everyone, give my regards to Broadway. Remember me to Herald Square.
That tune, right?
Yep.
Tell all the pikers on the hill that I’ll be back again.
There we go.
Yeah.
That’s great.
And so a good thing that we have a date for that.
Then we know which piker to go for.
We can kind of look back in the old newspapers and in the slang reference works and figure out which piker was being used in Ithaca, New York, which is where Cornell University is located, at the time to figure out which one was most likely.
And I love that you did your own field work because you found what I would find, which is the piker, meaning freshman, doesn’t really work.
And the Big Red Band on their website has an FAQ where they try to puzzle out the song and explain everything.
And they’ve done a really good job, except for the word piker.
They simply say it means freshman, and I think they’re wrong.
I think piker just means what you said.
It’s somebody who is the opposite of a grind, which was another word at the time.
I found that boat.
Yep.
I found piker and grind in a newspaper in 1905 in association with Cornell.
So the same year that the song was written, and piker meant a poor student, a shirker, a lazy student.
The opposite of a grind. A grind is a studious student, one who does all the reading on time, who paces it out over the year and doesn’t have to cram at the end of the year.
And so that piker is probably related to a larger slang piker that was floating around the United States at the time, which referred to a shirker or just a person who is just not doing their best.
And a little bit related to the poker piker, someone who only puts up tiny bets when they should be betting more, somebody who’s reluctant to commit, reluctant to give their all, somebody who is unwilling to help other people, somebody who’s unwilling to step out.
A piker also at the time was a man who wouldn’t splurge on a date.
He might take her out for a hot dog instead of for dinner, that sort of thing.
So the song is telling all the pikers, that is, the lazy students, that we’ll see you later.
So first he says goodbye to the administrators who kicked him out.
And then he tells the pikers, I’ll be back and we’ll have a drink when I come back.
What a bad influence, huh?
Right? Thank you guys so much.
We’re glad you called, Laura.
I’m so glad you could help.
I was so excited when I saw this song and saw that word.
I was like, I’m going to call Grant and Martha.
I did the whole thing.
Laura, thank you for your call.
Take care now.
All right, talking with you.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
If there’s a word you’re curious about, call us, 877-929-9673, or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.
