The correct use of the word "matriculate" and "matriculation"
Wayne McDougall
I am writing a consitution which needs to define a university student.
It has been suggested to me that this is best done using the word
"matriculate" and / or "matriculation". Although I am aware of these words
they do not form part of my every-day vocabulary.
Can someone give me some examples of their usage. In particular, example
definitions of university students using those words would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time.
--
This posting is definitive.
Wayne McDougall :: Keeper of the list of shows better than Star Trek(TM) ::
Ask me about the Auckland Festival of Missions, 18-25 April, 1993
I always change my mind when new evidence is available. What method do you use?
Graham Toal
Recently I have heard the word misused several times here in Southern
California. For example, I overheard a student complain, "It takes
six years to matriculate at CSU now." Is this confusion of
"matriculate" with "graduate" occurring elsewhere?
Having stood all day in the queue at Edinburgh to matriculate each year, I
can well sympathise with someone thinking it feels like six years :-)
G
Franz Delahan
>
>I am writing a consitution which needs to define a university student.
>It has been suggested to me that this is best done using the word
>"matriculate" and / or "matriculation". Although I am aware of these words
>they do not form part of my every-day vocabulary.
>Can someone give me some examples of their usage. In particular, example
>definitions of university students using those words would be appreciated.
>
The word "matriculate" means to enroll in a group, especially a
college or university.
Examples: The university will matriculate over a thousand students
this year. A university student is one who has matriculated at a
university.
Perhaps "enroll" would serve as well unless, of course, you would like
to evoke an image of the student being placed in the womb (matrix)
of a nourishing mother (alma mater). I believe some universities
use "matriculate" only to mean "enroll in a degree program." So
you would have to be careful in using it in a definition.
Recently I have heard the word misused several times here in Southern
California. For example, I overheard a student complain, "It takes
six years to matriculate at CSU now." Is this confusion of
"matriculate" with "graduate" occurring elsewhere?
--
Franz Delahan, Math. Dept., University of California at Irvine
wil...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
>
> I am writing a consitution which needs to define a university student.
> It has been suggested to me that this is best done using the word
> "matriculate" and / or "matriculation". Although I am aware of these words
> they do not form part of my every-day vocabulary.
>
> Can someone give me some examples of their usage. In particular, example
> definitions of university students using those words would be appreciated.
Matriculation is what happens on one's first Saturday of Michaelmas Full Term
in Oxford. One gets all togged up in one's subfusc and toddles off to the
Sheldonian, where the Vice-Chancellor or his representative pronounces a few
words of Latin and admits one into the University.
The word "matriculation" comes from the Latin "matrix" meaning "womb", and the
operation is welcoming one into the womb---the Sheldonian is rather like a
womb---of the University. And if the University is the womb in which one is
carried, the college must be one's nursemaid. And so it is. The college motto
is "Reginae erunt nutrices tuae"---"Queen's will be your nursing-mothers".
And all this nonsense is what makes Oxford Oxford and not, say, its young
upstart rival in the fens.
--
Stephen Wilcox | Bear with me, please. I can't think
wil...@vax.oxford.ac.uk | of anything witty at the moment.
Steve Hayes
>> I am writing a consitution which needs to define a university student.
>> It has been suggested to me that this is best done using the word
>> "matriculate" and / or "matriculation". Although I am aware of these words
>> they do not form part of my every-day vocabulary.
>>
>> Can someone give me some examples of their usage. In particular, example
>> definitions of university students using those words would be appreciated.
>
>Matriculation is what happens on one's first Saturday of Michaelmas Full Term
>in Oxford. One gets all togged up in one's subfusc and toddles off to the
>Sheldonian, where the Vice-Chancellor or his representative pronounces a few
>words of Latin and admits one into the University.
>
>The word "matriculation" comes from the Latin "matrix" meaning "womb", and the
>operation is welcoming one into the womb---the Sheldonian is rather like a
>womb---of the University. And if the University is the womb in which one is
>carried, the college must be one's nursemaid. And so it is. The college motto
>is "Reginae erunt nutrices tuae"---"Queen's will be your nursing-mothers".
>
>And all this nonsense is what makes Oxford Oxford and not, say, its young
>upstart rival in the fens.
I always though it came from "matricula", meaning a "roll", and meant that
one was enrolled as a member of the university.
I don't know about the fens, but I matriculated at Durham (or should I say "
was matriculated") in 1966.
In South Africa the universities have a "joint matriculation" examination
for university entrance, and anyone who wants to register as a student (i.e.
matriculate) must either have passed it, or have a certificate of exemption
from the examination. This certificate of exemption is popularly referred to
as "matric" as in "Have you got a matric?"
============================================================
Steve Hayes, Department of Missiology & Editorial Department
Univ. of South Africa, P.O. Box 392, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa
Internet: haye...@risc1.unisa.ac.za
steve...@p5.f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
stephe...@f20.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
NancyKay
>Matriculation is what happens on one's first Saturday of Michaelmas Full Term
>in Oxford. One gets all togged up in one's subfusc and toddles off to the
>Sheldonian, where the Vice-Chancellor or his representative pronounces a few
>words of Latin and admits one into the University.
>And all this nonsense is what makes Oxford Oxford and not, say, its young
>upstart rival in the fens.
>Stephen Wilcox | Bear with me, please. I can't think
>wil...@vax.oxford.ac.uk | of anything witty at the moment.
OTOH, at American college, such as Mt Holyoke, matriculation is when, your
parents having hocked themselves to the gills to pay the tuition, you show
up and order a phone and a cube fridge and put up some curtains that match
your bedspread. ;)
NancyKay
--
"'In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to meet
=us=, from many strange places and by many strange roads, and what it is set
to us to do to them, and what it is set to them to do to us, will all be
done.'" --Dickens, in =Little Dorrit= nanc...@panix.com
Anno Siegel
[...]
>I always though it came from "matricula", meaning a "roll", and meant that
>one was enrolled as a member of the university.
Confirmed by my online Webster:
matriculate \me-'trik-ye-,laEt\ vb -lated; -lating
[ML matriculatus, pp. of matriculare, fr. LL matricula public roll, dim.
of matric-, matrix list, fr. L, womb]
vt
(1577)
:to enroll as a member of a body and esp. of a college or university
~ vi: to become matriculated
[...]
--
Anno Sie...@zrz.tu-berlin.de
Never change your .sig nature when busy, drunk or dead.
Peter Moylan
> In South Africa the universities have a "joint matriculation" examination
> for university entrance, and anyone who wants to register as a student (i.e.
> matriculate) must either have passed it, or have a certificate of exemption
> from the examination. This certificate of exemption is popularly referred to
> as "matric" as in "Have you got a matric?"
It goes a little further in some states of Australia. "To get your
matric" used to mean to pass the (state-wide) examination at the end
of the sixth year of high school. All Australian universities
recognised this as a qualification for university entrance. Students
who entered a university had then to matriculate formally by signing
a register at the university, or some such thing. Those who didn't
enter a university never matriculated in a formal sense, but were still
said to "have their matric."
There was a time, long ago, when there was only one university per state,
and then it was clear that the matriculation exam was set by that
university and that it was for matriculation into that university.
Over time, adaptations were made to handle the fact that the
matriculation examination was shared by several universities, and
after a while the universities stopped being the sole controllers of
the exam. Until about twenty years ago, though, it was still called
a matriculation exam.
This has now changed. The state-wide examinations still exist,
but everyone is bending over backwards to make it clear that they
are not university entrance exams. (The universities still use them
as such, but that's a separate issue ... I think.) Now you
"get your HSC" (Higher School Certificate). In New South Wales
- and possibly in other states, I'm not sure - the concept of "failing"
has also been abolished. Anyone who sits for the examination gets
some nonzero score, and thereby gets the HSC. Fortunately for the
universities and for potential employers, the actual score is still
printed on the piece of paper.
This, by the way, does create an awkward public relations problem for
the universities. Every year there is a huge fuss about "x thousand
qualified students denied university entrance". The journalists and
the politicians never bother to think about what they mean by
"qualified". In the long term, this will probably force the
universities to re-introduce their own matriculation examinations.
But I imagine that they'll be called something like "entrance
examinations", because by then everyone will have forgotten the
meaning of "matriculation".
--
Peter Moylan ee...@wombat.newcastle.edu.au