hokie

A term used in "Old Hokie", the athletic cheer of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, which cheer was composed by Oscar M. Stull of the VPI Class of 1896 as the winning submission of a student body contest held to mark the changing of the university's name from Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (VAMC) to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI) in 1896. Stull's original term was in the form Hoki (the terminal "-e" was a later addition); the beginning lines of the cheer as composed by Stull were: "Hoki Hoki Hoki Hy / Techs Techs V.P.I!" Though "hokie" (an alternative form of "hokey" and "hoky") is, indeed, an English adjective derived from the verb hoke, and means "contrived" or "sentimental", Stull himself indicated (whether truly or falsely) that he fabricated the term solely as a poetic device for his cheer, in which case "Hokie" might be viewed as a type of nonsense word. Whichever is the case, sometime in the early 20th century Hokie, assumedly because of its prominent position in the school cheer and because of the inherent euphony of the word itself, was decontextualized from Stull's cheer to be applied as an identifier of VPI students and alumni, collectively known as "Hokies", as well as to the mascot of the school's athletic teams, an abstractive representation of a turkey (which is another story), in one of the unusual examples of school mascot naming. Compare Hoya/Hoyas.