Word of the Day: Pelican Many of the colleges that make up
Cambridge University, founded in more pious times, have
religious names: Trinity, St John’s, Peterhouse (as in ‘The
House of Saint Peter’, and thus never to be called ‘Peterhouse
College’), and others are all more or less recognisable as
institutions that once taught theology above all else. The most
obvious examples of the phenomenon are, of course, Christ’s
College and Jesus College, but coming in a not so distant third
place is the only college founded by the citizens of Cambridge
(in 1352 following a plague outbreak), Corpus Christi. The
College name translates as ‘the body of Christ’, and the college
symbol is a pelican. Believe it or not, there is a method in
this unusual symblic alignement of our Saviour and the seaside-
dwelling avian, as revealed by Laertes’ words in Hamlet: LAERTES
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms; And, like the
kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood. With
these words, the hot-blooded lord promis