Origins
It is not known where the term "Rag" originates in this context, but it is thought to be from the Victorian era when students took time out of their studies to collect rags to clothe the poor. The verb "rag" means to badger or pester someone, and early Rags collectors may have "ragged" passers-by until they made a donation.
Much more recently "RAG" has come to stand for "Raise and Give", "Raise A Grand" or "Raising and Giving"; these are backronyms, purportedly coined to convince a manager in a large charity of the value of working with student fundraisers.
The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin of the word from "An act of ragging; esp. an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried on in defiance of authority or discipline", and provides a citation from 1864, noting that the word was known in Oxford before this date.
Student Rags took place between University College London and King's College London from their foundation in the 1820s, and to this day there is an annual competition between the United Hospitals.
The first Rag in South Africa was started at the University of Pretoria in 1925. The students took to the streets in parade that still exists today and is known as the Procession. During this parade, where they build floats, they carry cans and ask the spectating public to make donations. Today RAGs held at Afrikaans universities is called JOOL. The acronym (Jou Onbaatsugtige Opoffering vir Liefdadigheid) is translated from Afrikaans as "Your selfless sacrifice for charity". The annual JOOL/RAG week is held at the start of every academic year and serves also as a kind of welcoming party to students of the university.
Read more about this topic: Rag (student Society)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)