The people have spoken! It's been roughly 24 hours after we posted our lovely little poll asking what the worst motto in the Ivy League was and the results are in: Cornell's English-language douchebaggery is vindicated, topping the rest by a landslide with 113 votes (or 31.9 percent) indicating that an Ivy motto without Latin is like a Leaguer without a trust fund.

Coming in behind Cornell (yuk, yuk) is Dartmouth's emo-teardrop motto, with 24.3 percent of the voteage. Just makes you ask, "if a Keggy cries in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound?", doesn't it? Additionally and apparently, mottos without references to "God" or "Truth" just can't hack it in the intense bloodsport competition of our poll. Take that as you will.

Conversely, then, it can be inferred that our incredible sample size of 354 (of roughly 3,000 total visits) has also decided that Yale's motto is the actual best, with Penn at a close second. Which means that we've either a lot of readers in New Haven or Newell's fan club is hating all over this blog, as he requested in our very first post. Thanks for playing, kiddies. -- ANDREW NUSCA

A good motto is like a one-night stand. Immediate, satisfying, and best explained in the least amount of words possible ("Yeah?" "Yeah."). We here at IvyGate love 'em, as indicated by our own sitting on top of this page. But it's hard to match up to Motto Magazine ("Purpose, passion and profit," in case you're wondering), which is an entire glossy dedicated to the craft that was originally started by two Wall Street Journal alums.

Just yesterday, this incredibly niche magazine released its first annual Top 10 Motto List, and higher education was the target. The best? Our good friends in Ithaca, of course, with the sage, hallucinatory words of "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." Apparently, no points for brevity (or sobriety) were given. Not to be forgotten, rounding out the Top Ten were Brown (No. 2), Penn (No. 5) and Dartmouth (No. 7), with Harvard and Yale receiving Honorable Mentions for probably the first time in their little academic careers.

The top editors of Motto Mag are Northwestern and Vandy alums, so no apparent swing there, but no word on the rest of the staff and how that may have influenced the final list (clearly, some vendettas against Columbia and Princeton, the only two of the Ancient Eight to leave without recognition). But we here at IvyGate feel the list is suspect, since no explanation behind the choices is given.

But wait! The neutral Ithaca Journal's got an answer:

The beauty of Cornell's motto is that it captures an aspiration that transcends the generations, and every Cornelian believes they have experienced it," said Tommy Bruce, vice president of communications for Cornell.

Uh, OK. So we at IvyGate are taking matters into our own hands in protest of this bizarre list and polling the people, not the editors: What's the worst motto in the League?

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