Pennying
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Pennying is a drinking game popular amongst students in the United Kingdom. In Oxbridge, pennying is especially prevalent at "formal hall swaps", or other dinner equivalent, between two dining societies- one female, one male.
Should someone manage to slip a penny into another person's drink after announcing pennying will take place on the night, the owner of the drink must shout "God save the Queen!" and consume it in one go within a set period of time - usually two or three minutes or less, or in any case the next time the victim touches the glass.
Two Robinson College students attending a Caius College formal hall were fined in excess of £50 and given a lifelong ban from the college for pennying Professor Stephen Hawking's dessert.[1]
If pennying has been banned alternatives can be used, including Smarties, Lovehearts, M&Ms, skittles (also frequently dissolved in vodka, as seen at St Edmund Hall in Oxford) or a bottle cap folded in half. [2]
Pennying has been banned from St. Anne's College and Brasenose College Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Brasenose's code of conduct refers to the illicit activity as “the practice of dropping a coin in a cup to coerce someone to consume the contents." Student Newspapers reported that the St Anne's College authorities and the Junior Common Room had come into conflict when the Freshers of 2006 were informed that pennying remained 'a forbidden pleasure' in one of their guides to the college.[3][4]
The practice is similar but probably unrelated to the (almost certainly older) practice of sconcing at Oxford.
[edit] References
- ^ BBC - h2g2 - Pennying at Caius- A Noble Cambridge Tradition
- ^ BBC A description of the rules of Pennying] on the BBC's light-hearted collaborative encyclopaedia h2g2
- ^ Anger after college bans pennying News Article, Pg 7, "The Cherwell", October 4, 2006
- ^ Editorial, "The Oxford Student", October 4, 2006
