Here’s a fun little list from the New Era’s Jan. 16, 1934, “student page,” which contained articles and photos submitted by pupils from schools around the county.

I noticed one of the Columbia teachers was fond of saying “Not?”

Only a punctuation mark away from the present-day expression:  “Not!” …which, thankfully, seems to be on the way out.

It would be interesting to see a list of what students today would cite as the pet expressions of their teachers.