is class year the year you graduate?
liu
Thanks!
Skitt
[is class year the year you graduate?]
> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am I right?
>
> Thanks!
Yes.
--
Skitt (AmE)
James Silverton
> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>> I right?
>>
>> Thanks!
> Yes.
I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
us.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Don Aitken
<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>
>> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>
>>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>>> I right?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>
>> Yes.
>
>I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>us.
Outside the ranks of the academic fundraisers who organise such
events, I would not expect to find many people in the UK who would
attempt to give an exact meaning to "class of [year]". It is near to
being a purely American expression as anything could be.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Roland Hutchinson
For some purposes, it's the year that you were _expected_ to graduate
when you started, if you graduated earlier or later than the bulk of your
class. This can be called your "social class (year)".
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Lars Eighner
<2d309290-f7d3-44b6...@k26g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented liu broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am I right?
Yes.
Before graduation you belong to the class that is (year you started) +
(number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong to
the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> September 5898, 1993
277 days since Rick Warren prayed over Bush's third term.
Obama: No hope, no change, more of the same. Yes, he can, but no, he won't.
D. Stussy
news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
> In our last episode,
> <2d309290-f7d3-44b6...@k26g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>, the
> lovely and talented liu broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
> > I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am I right?
>
> Yes.
>
> Before graduation you belong to the class that is (year you started) +
> (number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
> earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
> might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong
to
> the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
"If you ARE graduated...?" Not: "If you HAVE graduated ...?"
It's a completed act. It takes the perfect tense. (v.t.)
Mark Brader
> > But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, [then] you
> > belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
> "If you ARE graduated...?" Not: "If you HAVE graduated ...?"
For many Americans, it's the institution that graduates you, hence the
passive. Are there also many people who use it both ways?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "It's easier to deal with 'opposite numbers'
m...@vex.net | when you know you cannot trust them." --Chess
the Omrud
> On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:43:35 -0400, "James Silverton"
> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>>
>>> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>>>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>>>> I right?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>> Yes.
>> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>> us.
>
> Outside the ranks of the academic fundraisers who organise such
> events, I would not expect to find many people in the UK who would
> attempt to give an exact meaning to "class of [year]". It is near to
> being a purely American expression as anything could be.
And if the OP is referring to high school then the word "graduation" is
not relevant in BrE, where it describes only the successful completion
of a university degree.
--
David
J. J. Lodder
> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>
> > [is class year the year you graduate?]
>
> >> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
> >> I right?
> >>
> >> Thanks!
>
> > Yes.
>
> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
> us.
But not for the Dutch. [1]
'Year' always refers to year of arrival at the universty.
Another possible source of misunderstandings,
Jan
[1] A reason perhaps being that in the olden days
many students never took a degree.
They just went to the university for a few years
for having been there.
Peter Moylan
> Lars Eighner:
>>> But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, [then] you
>>> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
>
> D. Stussy:
>> "If you ARE graduated...?" Not: "If you HAVE graduated ...?"
>
> For many Americans, it's the institution that graduates you, hence the
> passive. Are there also many people who use it both ways?
In Australian tradition, you graduate into the university, i.e. you
become a member of the university by earning your degree. (The earlier
step, of being accepted to begin your studies, is called matriculation.)
I would imagine that many Australians are ignorant of this fine point.
Nevertheless, I doubt that any Australian would treat "graduate" as a
transitive verb.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Lars Eighner
Stussy broadcast on alt.usage.english:
If it is a transitive verb (which is what I think you mean by v.t.)
as it was originally:
The institution does the act of graduating the student. The object is the
student. The subject is the institution.
<Institution> graduates <student>.
Therefore the student is graduated, the student does not graduate.
If you want "have been graduated," fine, but it doesn't seem quite right to
me for an event that may occur in 2012, 2013, or 2014, or an event at an
unspecified time.
In recent years people have begun to use it as an intransitive verb. Usage
has made this acceptable. But as you seemed to specify v.t., the
intransitive sense is beside the point.
?I graduated from Ayers Rock High School. (new, improved, intransitive
sense)
Ayers Rock High School graduated me. (classic transitive sense)
*I graduated (Ayers Rock) High School. (wrongity, wrong, wrong, bastard
sense)
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> September 5899, 1993
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> James Silverton <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>>
>>> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>>
>>>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>>>> I right?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>
>>> Yes.
>>
>> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>> us.
>
> But not for the Dutch. [1]
> 'Year' always refers to year of arrival at the universty.
In France, too.
--
athel
ke...@cam.ac.uk
J. J. Lodder <jjl...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>
>> >> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>> >> I right?
>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>> us.
>
>But not for the Dutch.
Cambridge students are generally grouped by their year of matriculation - that
is, the year they arrived at the University. Graduation may be three or four
years later, depending on the course.
But, as someone pointed out, the OP was probably talking about US high school,
not university.
Katy
ke...@cam.ac.uk
Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:
>
>The institution does the act of graduating the student. The object is the
>student. The subject is the institution.
>
><Institution> graduates <student>.
>
>Therefore the student is graduated, the student does not graduate.
>
>In recent years people have begun to use it as an intransitive verb. Usage
>has made this acceptable. But as you seemed to specify v.t., the
>intransitive sense is beside the point.
I don't think the intransitive sense is recent. it is the only sense in the
UK, and has been for a great many years (I was going to say hundreds, but can't
give a cite for that; but probably ever since the word came into use at all).
Katy
Chuck Riggs
Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
in America.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
who speaks AmE, lives near Dublin, Ireland,usually spells in BrE
and hasn't corrected his email address yet
Chuck Riggs
In the world of how people actually talk, I'd expect to see lines
drawn on someone, as if he were a ruler, if I ever, ever heard "the
student is graduated".
Sorry, Lars, but a student graduates.
<snip>
Paul Wolff
be a graduate. But there's an appearance of an inconsistency there. The
-ate suffix often represents the product of an -ate verb, as
particularly observed in chemistry, but elsewhere too.
For example, it is possible to hydrate a salt, by the act of hydration,
and the result is a hydrate. A precipitate has been precipitated. A
delegate is someone who has been delegated. Analogously, it might be
thought that a graduate is someone who has been graduated, though one
would expect a thing that has been graduated to have been provided with
markings along a measuring scale.
--
Paul
semir...@my-deja.com
>On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:19:35 GMT, the Omrud wrote:
>>And if the OP is referring to high school then the word "graduation" is
>>not relevant in BrE, where it describes only the successful completion
>>of a university degree.
>Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
>usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
>occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
>in America. Regards, Chuck Riggs,
When I was a student, many years ago, only universities were
perceived as issuing degrees, so it seemed they had to be
"University Degrees". If somebody attended a college and got
a degree it might have been issued on behalf of an university.
Having said that, I am probably wrong in regard to fact, but
the above is certainly the way it seemed at the time.
Of course things have changed since
James Hogg
As you say, "the -ate suffix often represents the product of an -ate
verb", semantically speaking. As for the etymology and morphology,
however, it's the verb that is the product of the past participle by
back-formation. The Latin infinitive form "precipitare" yielded French
"pr�cipiter" and the obsolete English verb "precipit". English has
created verbs on the pattern of "precipitate" from the past participle
"precipitate" and the noun "precipitation".
--
James
Lars Eighner
<dpq8e59d342t9vkuj...@4ax.com>,
the lovely and talented Chuck Riggs
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
If graduate is a transitive verb (see above) when a student graduates,
what is the object of graduates?
><snip>
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> September 5899, 1993
278 days since Rick Warren prayed over Bush's third term.
Leslie Danks
[...]
> It's true that a British undergraduate will (usually) graduate, and then
> be a graduate. But there's an appearance of an inconsistency there. The
> -ate suffix often represents the product of an -ate verb, as
> particularly observed in chemistry, but elsewhere too.
>
> For example, it is possible to hydrate a salt, by the act of hydration,
> and the result is a hydrate. A precipitate has been precipitated.
However, a product can precipitate from a solution (for example).
> A
> delegate is someone who has been delegated. Analogously, it might be
> thought that a graduate is someone who has been graduated, though one
> would expect a thing that has been graduated to have been provided with
> markings along a measuring scale.
--
Les (BrE)
liu
With all these social networking webs available all over the world,
the year for class year can mean differently for different people.
The reason I asked was that I noticed an old classmate of mine used
the year we started college instead of graduation. I went to US for
graduate school but he didn't. So maybe that's way it was decided in
my home country, Taiwan?
Steve Hayes
>Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
>usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
>occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
>in America.
Colleges give tuition, but degrees are awarded by universities.
At least that was the case in the Brit university I attended (Durham).
And I don't think you can have an undergraduate degree. Once you have a
degree, you're a graduate.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Don Phillipson
news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
> Before graduation you belong to the class that is (year you started) +
> (number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
> earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
> might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong to
> the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
This accurately reflects the complexity of British practice i.e. offers
a secondary reason why British univ. graduates do not talk about
"the class of 91" (the primary reason being that there is no functional
need to know what class group you belonged to: reunions after 5 or
25 years are not nearly so common in Britain as at US schools and
universities.)
The armed forces solved this problem long ago, usually by the
word Entry, e.g. No. 76 Entry at RAF College Cranwell which
celebrated the 50th anniversary of Passing Out (graduation)
this year. Of course our ranks included a couple of people who
began in 75 Entry and got restreamed, but the date of graduation
is what counts in the military (for seniority in promotion etc.) Every
military training course is identified by number, from Staff College
down to No. 4321 floor-sweepers' course.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Wood Avens
wrote:
Depending on the country you live in, words like "college", "school",
"university" and "graduate" have different connotations. In the UK,
people "graduate" only if they have achieved a degree (BA, BSc, etc),
but in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
their high school. It may be that your classmate was referring to
their graduation year from what Americans call high school, which
would (often) be the same year in which they started at a college or
university.
--
Katy Jennison
spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @
R H Draney
>
>"Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
>news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
>
>> Before graduation you belong to the class that is (year you started) +
>> (number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
>> earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
>> might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong to
>> the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
>> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
>
>This accurately reflects the complexity of British practice i.e. offers
>a secondary reason why British univ. graduates do not talk about
>"the class of 91" (the primary reason being that there is no functional
>need to know what class group you belonged to: reunions after 5 or
>25 years are not nearly so common in Britain as at US schools and
>universities.)
The date of one's high-school graduation is important for other reasons; I have
a theory that it identifies quite accurately the music a person thinks of as "my
time"....
So for me, that's Eagles, Captain & Tennille, Olivia Newton-John, Barry Manilow,
and KC & the Sunshine Band....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
D. Stussy
news:zOidnVobo5K0Z37X...@vex.net...
> Lars Eighner:
> > > But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, [then] you
> > > belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
>
> D. Stussy:
> > "If you ARE graduated...?" Not: "If you HAVE graduated ...?"
>
> For many Americans, it's the institution that graduates you, hence the
> passive. Are there also many people who use it both ways?
Not in my America! ...And both my parents were university professors.
D. Stussy
There is no object.
People do things. Inanimate objects have things done to them.
Mark Brader
> Depending on the country you live in, words like "college", "school",
> "university" and "graduate" have different connotations. In the UK,
> people "graduate" only if they have achieved a degree (BA, BSc, etc),
> but in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
--
Mark Brader "Inventions reached their limit long ago,
Toronto and I see no hope for further development."
m...@vex.net -- Julius Frontinus, 1st century A.D.
My text in this article is in the public domain.
James Hogg
Knives cut butter, cars hit trees, paving stones trip people up...
--
James
Wood Avens
>Katy Jennison:
>> Depending on the country you live in, words like "college", "school",
>> "university" and "graduate" have different connotations. In the UK,
>> people "graduate" only if they have achieved a degree (BA, BSc, etc),
>> but in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>> their high school. ...
>
>Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
Would "complete" have been a better word?
Don Aitken
wrote:
You have my sympathy.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Mark Brader
>>> ...in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>>> their high school. ...
Mark Brader:
>> Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>> to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>> school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
Katy Jennison:
> Would "complete" have been a better word?
Yeah, I think so. But "graduate" is the normal one for me. It is
marked by the awarding of a diploma, after all. (Specifically, in
my case, the SSHGD.)
--
Mark Brader, "It is impossible. Solution follows..."
Toronto, m...@vex.net -- Richard Heathfield
Frank ess
Sh-boom.
--
Frank ess
Wood Avens
>Katy Jennison:
>>>> ...in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>>>> their high school. ...
>
>Mark Brader:
>>> Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>>> to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>>> school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
>
>Katy Jennison:
>> Would "complete" have been a better word?
>
>Yeah, I think so. But "graduate" is the normal one for me. It is
>marked by the awarding of a diploma, after all. (Specifically, in
>my case, the SSHGD.)
Indeed, but I was lookiing for another word to explain what "graduate"
implies, because in the UK "graduate" doesn't apply to high school.
Peter Moylan
> It may be that your classmate was referring to
> their graduation year from what Americans call high school, which
> would (often) be the same year in which they started at a college or
> university.
It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all these
years, it had never occurred to me that someone could start university
in the same year they finished high school.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
R H Draney
>>a theory that it identifies quite accurately the music a person thinks of as "my
>>time"....
>>
>>So for me, that's Eagles, Captain & Tennille, Olivia Newton-John, Barry Manilow,
>>and KC & the Sunshine Band....r
>
>You have my sympathy.
The number one song on the day I graduated was "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton
John, which ended a twelve-week stretch with twelve different number
ones...Elton also had the two-week chart-topper immediately *preceding* the
string, which stands as the longest consecutive stretch of one-week champions in
history....
I think it makes a better banner representing my generation than the number-one
song the day I was born ("Venus" by Frankie Avalon) or conceived ("Purple People
Eater" by Sheb Woolley)....r
R H Draney
I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the UK that one
has done everything required to complete high school...that's what makes the
term "school leaver" sound odd to us here in the US; it brings a connotation of
someone who just walked out the door one day and didn't come back (what we would
call a "dropout")....r
Peter Moylan
> The date of one's high-school graduation is important for other reasons; I have
> a theory that it identifies quite accurately the music a person thinks of as "my
> time"....
No, it's all about romantic associations. The music that makes me go all
misty comes from two eras: once from late adolescence, the second time
between marriages.
Skitt
> Wood Avens wrote:
>> It may be that your classmate was referring to
>> their graduation year from what Americans call high school, which
>> would (often) be the same year in which they started at a college or
>> university.
>
> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all these
> years, it had never occurred to me that someone could start university
> in the same year they finished high school.
I finished high school in February, and started college in March of the same
year.
--
Skitt (AmE)
HVS
> Wood Avens wrote:
>
>> It may be that your classmate was referring to
>> their graduation year from what Americans call high school,
>> which would (often) be the same year in which they started at a
>> college or university.
>
> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all
> these years, it had never occurred to me that someone could
> start university in the same year they finished high school.
This comment confuses me, as it would never have occurred to me that
those two wouldn't normally be the same year.
I finished high school in May/June 1970, and started university that
September -- is that unusual in your part of the world, or am I
missing something?
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
James Hogg
In the UK you finish (the equivalent of) high school without actually
knowing whether you have done the equivalent of graduating. You can
leave school and find out over a month later that you failed all the
exams. Having a ceremony on the last day of school could be premature.
--
James
Roland Hutchinson
> In article <1j851mp.891...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder
> <jjl...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>>
>>> >> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am I
>>> >> right?
>>> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little
>>> leeway seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did
>>> not actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest
>>> of us.
>>
>>But not for the Dutch.
>>'Year' always refers to year of arrival at the universty.
>
> Cambridge students are generally grouped by their year of matriculation
> - that is, the year they arrived at the University. Graduation may be
> three or four years later, depending on the course.
>
> But, as someone pointed out, the OP was probably talking about US high
> school, not university.
Though US universities and colleges (which aren't the same as UK
colleges) work in the same way with class years as highs schools do.
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Roland Hutchinson
Same story here, one year later.
Mark Brader
>> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all
>> these years, it had never occurred to me that someone could
>> start university in the same year they finished high school.
Harvey Van Sickle:
> This comment confuses me...
> I finished high school in May/June 1970, and started university that
> September -- is that unusual in your part of the world, or am I
> missing something?
In Peter's part of the world, those dates would be in the winter.
Enough said?
--
Mark Brader | "Don't you want to... see my ID? ... I could be anybody."
Toronto | "No you couldn't, sir. This is Information Retrieval."
m...@vex.net | --Brazil
Roland Hutchinson
> D. Stussy wrote:
>> "Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
>> news:slrnhe901b....@debranded.larseighner.com...
>>> In our last episode,
>>> <dpq8e59d342t9vkuj...@4ax.com>, the lovely and talented
>>> Chuck Riggs
>>> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:59:25 +0000 (UTC), Lars Eighner
>>>> <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:
>>>>> In our last episode, <hc0rr9$o7b$1...@snarked.org>, the lovely and
>> talented D.
>>>>> Stussy broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>>>>>
>>>>>> "Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
>>>>>>> In our last episode,
>>>>>>> <2d309290-f7d3-44b6-8d45-
dd2c86...@k26g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
And (AmE) students graduate from high school (or college and/or
university). It is also possible to graduate from any or all of
elementary school, middle school or junior high school, kindergarden, or
nursery school. The level of formality may vary on these lower levels,
but I have known all of them to be done with caps and gowns, diplomas,
and the works.
Here, by the way, is an example that shows how befuddled we must seem to
the rest of the world, terminology-wise, in US tertiary education: I went
to college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is a
university.
Any questions?
HVS
> Peter Moylan:
>>> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all
>>> these years, it had never occurred to me that someone could
>>> start university in the same year they finished high school.
>
> Harvey Van Sickle:
>> This comment confuses me...
>
>> I finished high school in May/June 1970, and started university
>> that September -- is that unusual in your part of the world, or
>> am I missing something?
>
> In Peter's part of the world, those dates would be in the
> winter. Enough said?
Ah; of course -- thanks.
(I shouldn't have missed that, given that I've had in-laws with
nieces and nephews in New Zealand for 25+ years. Silly boy.)
Robin Bignall
And, of course, in the UK "college" doesn't necessarily imply
"university". Any organisation that supplies tertiary education can
call itself a college and teach things such as hairdressing, motor
mechanics, welding, nail painting and the like, and hand out various
types of diploma, some officially recognised, some not worth the paper
they're written on.
--
Robin
(BrE)
Herts, England
D. Stussy
news:hc2c1b$e7c$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Those are (in general) not inanimate objects, but animated by people. In
the case of paving stones, the saying is to possess it with a spirit (thus
making it animate) it doesn't have.
James Hogg
You have ventilated an inspiring theory. So when the anemometer is
spinning spiritedly and registering high wind speeds, and a gust of wind
blows a slate off a roof and the slate then kills a person, all these
active subjects are in some way animate.
--
James
James Hogg
> James Hogg wrote:
>
>> In the UK you finish (the equivalent of) high school without
>> actually knowing whether you have done the equivalent of
>> graduating. You can leave school and find out over a month later
>> that you failed all the exams. Having a ceremony on the last day of
>> school could be premature.
>
> of "satisfactory completion" - your exam results may be good enough
> for what you wanted, or not, but you'll still have some. I don't
> think we really have an equivalent of "high school dropout".
> (Compulsory education to age 16, soon to be 18, is surely a factor
> here.)
>
And another comment on R H Draney's remark that the term "school leaver"
sounds like what Americans call a "dropout": in the Republic of Ireland the
equivalent of a high-school graduation diploma is called the Leaving
Certificate and is considered a Good Thing.
In the first official language of Ireland the term for the certificate
has no mention of "leaving". It's called the "High Testimonial"
(Ardteistim�ireacht)
--
James
the Omrud
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:19:35 GMT, the Omrud
> <usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Don Aitken wrote:
>>> On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:43:35 -0400, "James Silverton"
>>> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>>>>
>>>>> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>>>>>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>>>>>> I right?
>>>>>>
>>>>> Yes.
>>>> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>>>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>>>> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>>>> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>>>> us.
>>> events, I would not expect to find many people in the UK who would
>>> attempt to give an exact meaning to "class of [year]". It is near to
>>> being a purely American expression as anything could be.
>> And if the OP is referring to high school then the word "graduation" is
>> not relevant in BrE, where it describes only the successful completion
>> of a university degree.
>
> Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
> usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
> occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
> in America.
In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high schools to
places where you take a catering course for six weeks. As a graduate of
Manchester University, I would never say that I attended a college,
which implies a lower level of studying than a university. "College
degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
you don't "attend" them.
--
David
Robin Bignall
<roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:
>James Hogg wrote:
>
>>In the UK you finish (the equivalent of) high school without actually
>>knowing whether you have done the equivalent of graduating. You can
>>leave school and find out over a month later that you failed all the
>>exams. Having a ceremony on the last day of school could be premature.
>
>I think it's also relevant that in the UK there's no binary measure of
>"satisfactory completion" - your exam results may be good enough for
>what you wanted, or not, but you'll still have some. I don't think we
>really have an equivalent of "high school dropout". (Compulsory
>education to age 16, soon to be 18, is surely a factor here.)
Back in the days of the eleven-plus, some years before GCSEs were
invented, secondary modern schools did not teach to a level sufficient
to obtain any public examinations, not even ordinary national
certificate. There was compulsory education to 15, but at the end of
it you merely received a school leaving certificate, which was simply
a document stating that you were no longer legally obliged to attend
school. This prevented truancy officers hauling you in, and showed a
potential employer that you could legally work.
the Omrud
> Wood Avens filted:
>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:46:36 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
>>
>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>>>> ...in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>>>>>> their high school. ...
>>> Mark Brader:
>>>>> Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>>>>> to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>>>>> school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>> Would "complete" have been a better word?
>>> Yeah, I think so. But "graduate" is the normal one for me. It is
>>> marked by the awarding of a diploma, after all. (Specifically, in
>>> my case, the SSHGD.)
>> Indeed, but I was lookiing for another word to explain what "graduate"
>> implies, because in the UK "graduate" doesn't apply to high school.
>
> I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the UK that one
> has done everything required to complete high school...that's what makes the
> term "school leaver" sound odd to us here in the US; it brings a connotation of
> someone who just walked out the door one day and didn't come back (what we would
> call a "dropout")....r
The only measurable achievement for completing high school in the UK is
to reach the age of 16. Everything else is qualifications, but we don't
have the concept of success or failure, other than for personal targets.
--
David
tony cooper
wrote:
No, it's typical. Not the 1970 part, but the months part.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Robin Bignall
wrote:
Even so, when I attended university most if not all of the rest of my
year had come straight from grammar school (1961) and I seemed to be
unusual in having worked for a couple of years. Recently, a "gap
year" between school and college has become fashionable.
Roland Hutchinson
> In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high schools to
> places where you take a catering course for six weeks. As a graduate of
> Manchester University, I would never say that I attended a college,
> which implies a lower level of studying than a university. "College
> degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
>
> A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
> degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
> you don't "attend" them.
American universities may be organized into colleges along broad
disciplinary lines (e.g., a College of Arts and Sciences), or the
subdivisions may be called schools (e.g., School of Engineering) or there
may be a mix of both at one institution.
A _very_ few US universities are organized into residential colleges
after the British model. The University of California at Santa Cruz,
founded in the 1960s, is the one that I am most familiar with. (It is a
campus of the enormous University of California system, not to be
confused with the California State University system, nor with the
University of Southern California, a private institution.)
the Omrud
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:41:26 +0000, the Omrud wrote:
>
>> In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high schools to
>> places where you take a catering course for six weeks. As a graduate of
>> Manchester University, I would never say that I attended a college,
>> which implies a lower level of studying than a university. "College
>> degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
>>
>> A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
>> degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
>> you don't "attend" them.
>
> American universities may be organized into colleges along broad
> disciplinary lines (e.g., a College of Arts and Sciences), or the
> subdivisions may be called schools (e.g., School of Engineering) or there
> may be a mix of both at one institution.
>
> A _very_ few US universities are organized into residential colleges
> after the British model.
That's not really the British model. It's the Oxford, Cambridge and
Durham model.
--
David
Roland Hutchinson
Yes, that's what I meant. Shoulda said "Oxbridge", at the risk of
offending the Durhamsters (how do they call themselves?).
James Silverton
I just noticed the phrase "academic fundraisers" but as far as I know,
while the Alumni Office of my college certainly encouraged and assisted
the 50th reunion that I mentioned, it was initiated by one of the class.
I'll admit that class reunions at shorter intervals than mine are
perhapd more of an American tradition. Incidentally, tho' not all the
class attended, only one member was established as deceased. "Better
living through Chemistry", perhaps?
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Paul Wolff
>Peter Moylan:
>>> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all
>>> these years, it had never occurred to me that someone could
>>> start university in the same year they finished high school.
>
>Harvey Van Sickle:
>> This comment confuses me...
>
>> I finished high school in May/June 1970, and started university that
>> September -- is that unusual in your part of the world, or am I
>> missing something?
>
>In Peter's part of the world, those dates would be in the winter.
>Enough said?
Not really. What, if anything, aligns the academic year with the
astronomical seasons in a post-agricultural society?
--
Paul
Paul Wolff
>On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:51:12 +0000, the Omrud wrote:
>> Roland Hutchinson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:41:26 +0000, the Omrud wrote:
>>>
>>>> In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high schools to
>>>> places where you take a catering course for six weeks. As a graduate
>>>> of Manchester University, I would never say that I attended a college,
>>>> which implies a lower level of studying than a university. "College
>>>> degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
>>>>
>>>> A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
>>>> degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
>>>> you don't "attend" them.
>>>
>>> American universities may be organized into colleges along broad
>>> disciplinary lines (e.g., a College of Arts and Sciences), or the
>>> subdivisions may be called schools (e.g., School of Engineering) or
>>> there may be a mix of both at one institution.
>>>
>>> A _very_ few US universities are organized into residential colleges
>>> after the British model.
>>
>> That's not really the British model. It's the Oxford, Cambridge and
>> Durham model.
>
>Yes, that's what I meant. Shoulda said "Oxbridge", at the risk of
>offending the Durhamsters (how do they call themselves?).
>
University degrees. They have an Earl Grey college, presumably for
char-ladies of the bergamot tendency.
To all Durham graduates: please help yourself to my apologies for making
fun.
--
Paul
Frank ess
Roland Hutchinson wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:41:26 +0000, the Omrud wrote:
>
>> In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high
>> schools to places where you take a catering course for six weeks.
>> As a graduate of Manchester University, I would never say that I
>> attended a college, which implies a lower level of studying than a
>> university. "College degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
>>
>> A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or
>> give degrees - they are places where students live and receive
>> support; and you don't "attend" them.
>
> American universities may be organized into colleges along broad
> disciplinary lines (e.g., a College of Arts and Sciences), or the
> subdivisions may be called schools (e.g., School of Engineering) or
> there may be a mix of both at one institution.
>
> A _very_ few US universities are organized into residential colleges
> after the British model. The University of California at Santa
> Cruz, founded in the 1960s, is the one that I am most familiar
> with. (It is a campus of the enormous University of California
> system, not to be confused with the California State University
> system, nor with the University of Southern California, a private
> institution.)
My granddaughter is in Porter College at UCSC; graduated from Coronado
High School in the Coronado School of the Arts program, June this
year, commenced the U of C at Santa Cruz in September, did a Summer
session at Porter over July and August.
I graduated Torrance High School in June, started a Summer session at
El Camino Junior College the same month, and entered U of So Cal in
September. All in 1954, prior to the Junior Colleges' becoming so
sensitive and acquiring the "Community College" moniker. USC spoke of
the "College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences", "College of
Engineering", and perhaps one or two others I disremember (surely the
College of Professional Sports was there but not ever admitted to). I
did some graduate school at San Diego State College before it was
elevated to University.
In my part of the USA there are numerous non-traditional colleges,
some with excellent reputations among Human Resources departments of
major industries and government agencies. Their specialty is six-week
"fire hydrant"* courses in aspects of management or technical skills.
*I had a course from a professor who may have been in on the origin of
that phrase: he taught the earliest astronauts and one of them said to
him, "This is like trying to slake your thirst at a fire hydrant!"
Any road, it seems to me the format of educational organization has
changed considerably since I was in it; no doubt it will be worlds
different in another few decades, as well.
--
Frank ess
D. Stussy
Why is that strange? Animate literally means able to move apparently under
its own power.
Garrett Wollman
Roland Hutchinson <my.sp...@verizon.net> wrote:
>American universities may be organized into colleges along broad
>disciplinary lines (e.g., a College of Arts and Sciences), or the
>subdivisions may be called schools (e.g., School of Engineering) or there
>may be a mix of both at one institution.
And of course there may also be Divisions. I used to work for, and
study in, the Division of Engineering, Mathematics, and Business
Administration. That must have been an uncomfortable grouping to
administer, as the B-school is now a separate thing as the School of
Business Administration. Where I work now, there is the School of
Engineering, the School of Architecture and Planning, and Whitaker
College of Health Sciences and Technology. (The last probably owes
its odd name to its odd structure as a joint program of MIT and
Harvard Medical School.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Robert Bannister
> Wood Avens filted:
>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:46:36 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
>>
>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>>>> ...in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>>>>>> their high school. ...
>>> Mark Brader:
>>>>> Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>>>>> to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>>>>> school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>> Would "complete" have been a better word?
>>> Yeah, I think so. But "graduate" is the normal one for me. It is
>>> marked by the awarding of a diploma, after all. (Specifically, in
>>> my case, the SSHGD.)
>> Indeed, but I was lookiing for another word to explain what "graduate"
>> implies, because in the UK "graduate" doesn't apply to high school.
>
> I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the UK that one
> has done everything required to complete high school...that's what makes the
> term "school leaver" sound odd to us here in the US; it brings a connotation of
> someone who just walked out the door one day and didn't come back (what we would
> call a "dropout")....r
>
>
And yet, that is just what happens most of the time. It was certainly
like that for me, both at school and at university - walked out and
never went back, but I didn't drop out - that's leaving before the
show's over.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Wood Avens wrote:
>
>> It may be that your classmate was referring to
>> their graduation year from what Americans call high school, which
>> would (often) be the same year in which they started at a college or
>> university.
>
> years, it had never occurred to me that someone could start university
> in the same year they finished high school.
>
You had forgotten that the academic year begins in Autumn in the
northern hemisphere.
--
Rob Bannister
Garrett Wollman
R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>The number one song on the day I graduated was "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton
>John, which ended a twelve-week stretch with twelve different number
>ones...Elton also had the two-week chart-topper immediately *preceding* the
>string, which stands as the longest consecutive stretch of one-week champions in
>history....
/me flips through Whitburn...
April 19 seems a bit early for high-school graduation for me. June
was the normal month where I grew up.
>I think it makes a better banner representing my generation than the number-one
>song the day I was born ("Venus" by Frankie Avalon) or conceived ("Purple People
>Eater" by Sheb Woolley)....r
So that means you were born some time between March 9 and April 6,
1959. (The Sheb Woolley reference doesn't help.) So you were just
barely 16 when you graduated from high school (as was I, albeit more
than a decade later). Now you and I are both officially Old, by
comparison with the frosh this year, some of whom were born during the
Clinton administration.
Robert Bannister
> On 25 Oct 2009, Peter Moylan wrote
>
>> Wood Avens wrote:
>>
>>> It may be that your classmate was referring to
>>> their graduation year from what Americans call high school,
>>> which would (often) be the same year in which they started at a
>>> college or university.
>> It's always interesting when a blind spot is revealed. In all
>> these years, it had never occurred to me that someone could
>> start university in the same year they finished high school.
>
> those two wouldn't normally be the same year.
>
> September -- is that unusual in your part of the world, or am I
> missing something?
>
It was Skitt's statement that threw me.
In the northern hemisphere, the academic year usually begins in
September or October and finishes in June or July. In the south, it
begins in February or sometimes at the end of January, finishing in
December (or rather earlier for uni students and also for school leavers
who will finish their exams in the first week or so of November).
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
When it comes to holidays, agriculture is still winning. A surprising
number of countries have 3 month school holidays so the kids can (in
theory) help with the harvest.
--
Rob Bannister
Garrett Wollman
Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>When it comes to holidays, agriculture is still winning. A surprising
>number of countries have 3 month school holidays so the kids can (in
>theory) help with the harvest.
There are still school districts in northern Maine that take a
week-long break in the autumn for the potato harvest.
Taking summers off in places with continental climates (like most of
the U.S.) saves on air-conditioning.
Roland Hutchinson
> In the northern hemisphere, the academic year usually begins in
> September or October and finishes in June or July. In the south, it
> begins in February or sometimes at the end of January, finishing in
> December (or rather earlier for uni students and also for school leavers
> who will finish their exams in the first week or so of November).
That's just plain upside down.
Jerry Friedman
> the lovely and talented Chuck Riggs
> broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
>
>
> > On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:59:25 +0000 (UTC), Lars Eighner
> ><use...@larseighner.com> wrote:
> >>Stussy broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
> >>> "Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
> >>>> In our last episode,
> >>>> lovely and talented liu broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
> >>>> > I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am I right?
>
> >>>> Yes.
>
> >>>> Before graduation you belong to the class that is (year you started) +
> >>>> (number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
> >>>> earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
> >>>> might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong
> >>>> to the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
> >>>> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
>
> >>> "If you ARE graduated...?" Not: "If you HAVE graduated ...?"
>
> >>> It's a completed act. It takes the perfect tense. (v.t.)
>
> >>If it is a transitive verb (which is what I think you mean by v.t.)
> >>as it was originally:
>
> >>The institution does the act of graduating the student. The object is the
> >>student. The subject is the institution.
>
> >><Institution> graduates <student>.
>
> >>Therefore the student is graduated, the student does not graduate.
> > In the world of how people actually talk, I'd expect to see lines
> > drawn on someone, as if he were a ruler, if I ever, ever heard "the
> > student is graduated".
> > Sorry, Lars, but a student graduates.
>
> If graduate is a transitive verb (see above) when a student graduates,
> what is the object of graduates?
>
It's usually not a transitive verb in the academic sense (except in
the popular but non-standard "she graduated high school").
Google Books results:
1,173 on "he was graduated" date:1950-1959
1,940 on "he graduated" date:1950-1959
1,537 on "he was graduated" date:1960-1969
2,040 on "he graduated" date:1960-1969 (Hey, the ratio's going
backwards!)
983 on "he was graduated" date:1970-1979
2,200 on "he graduated" date:1970-1979
881 on "he was graduated" date:1980-1989
2,630 on "he graduated" date:1980-1989
783 on "he was graduated" date:1990-1999
2,630 on "he graduated" date:1990-1999
912 on "he was graduated" date:2000-2009
3,330 on "he graduated" date:2000-2009
I'm surprised that almost 22% of the hits from this decade are on the
form that I thought was completely obsolete.
--
Jerry Friedman
Peter Moylan
> R H Draney wrote:
>> I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the
>> UK that one has done everything required to complete high
>> school...that's what makes the term "school leaver" sound odd to us
>> here in the US; it brings a connotation of someone who just walked
>> out the door one day and didn't come back (what we would call a
>> "dropout")....r
> And yet, that is just what happens most of the time. It was certainly
> like that for me, both at school and at university - walked out and
> never went back, but I didn't drop out - that's leaving before the
> show's over.
James gave the reason for this upthread. It's because we have public
examinations. (Run separately by each State in Australia, but we keep
hearing mutterings about the desirability of making them national.) With
thousands of candidates to grade in each subject, the results don't come
back until weeks later. Then, for those who have applied to a
university, there's a wait of a few more weeks before discovering
whether one's high school score was high enough to get in.
It's similar at university. By the time you find out you're eligible to
graduate, you've already left. The graduation ceremony typically happens
months after the final exams. In my case I didn't even get to the
graduation ceremony, because in the intervening time I'd moved too far away.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Jerry Friedman
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:56:53 -0700 (PDT), liu <spamfree...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Thank you all for the explanation and discussion. I learned a lot.
> >With all these social networking webs available all over the world,
> >the year for class year can mean differently for different people.
> >The reason I asked was that I noticed an old classmate of mine used
> >the year we started college instead of graduation. I went to US for
> >graduate school but he didn't. So maybe that's way it was decided in
> >my home country, Taiwan?
>
> Depending on the country you live in, words like "college", "school",
> "university" and "graduate" have different connotations. In the UK,
> people "graduate" only if they have achieved a degree (BA, BSc, etc),
> but in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
> their high school.
...
And junior high school, and elementary school, and probably lots of
others. I don't think most elementary and junior-high graduations
are taken all that seriously.
On the other hand, I think the U.S. military refers to recruits'
graduation from basic training or boot camp, and the trainees take
that very seriously.
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:10:34 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chri...@eircom.net> wrote:
> >Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
> >usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree?
> And I don't think you can have an undergraduate degree. Once you have a
> degree, you're a graduate.
In the U.S., the degree you get for undergraduate work can be called
an undergraduate degree.
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
> Don Phillipson filted:
>
>
>
>
>
> >"Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
> >news:slrnhe7ig0....@debranded.larseighner.com...
>
> >> (number of years usually required for graduation). If you are graduated
> >> earlier or later, it is the year you actually are graduated. Thus, you
> >> might enter a 4-year institution in September of 2009. You then belong to
> >> the class of 2013. But if you are graduated in 2012 or 2014, they you
> >> belong to the class of the year you actually were graduated.
>
> >a secondary reason why British univ. graduates do not talk about
> >"the class of 91" (the primary reason being that there is no functional
> >need to know what class group you belonged to: reunions after 5 or
> >25 years are not nearly so common in Britain as at US schools and
> >universities.)
>
> The date of one's high-school graduation is important for other reasons; I have
> a theory that it identifies quite accurately the music a person thinks of as "my
> time"....
>
> So for me, that's Eagles, Captain & Tennille, Olivia Newton-John, Barry Manilow,
> and KC & the Sunshine Band....r
Most of my favorite rock music was made five to fifteen years before I
started listening to it (in college, in the early '80s). I reject the
possibility that the Top 40 has anything to do with me or my time.
--
Jerry Friedman
tony cooper
If so, it wasn't the practice at Ft Leonard Wood when I completed
Basic. If I remember right, we finished Basic on Friday and had to
stay for a parade on Saturday. The rest of Saturday was taken up by
moving our stuff to different barracks. We were supposed to be off
for the weekend after that, but - as usual in the military - there was
no one around to issue passes until it was too late to get off the
base that day.
Peter Moylan
> On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:14:51 +0800, Robert Bannister wrote:
>
>> In the northern hemisphere, the academic year usually begins in
>> September or October and finishes in June or July. In the south, it
>> begins in February or sometimes at the end of January, finishing in
>> December (or rather earlier for uni students and also for school leavers
>> who will finish their exams in the first week or so of November).
>
> That's just plain upside down.
>
R H Draney
>
>In article <7kkbllF...@mid.individual.net>,
>Robert Bannister <rob...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>When it comes to holidays, agriculture is still winning. A surprising
>>number of countries have 3 month school holidays so the kids can (in
>>theory) help with the harvest.
>
>There are still school districts in northern Maine that take a
>week-long break in the autumn for the potato harvest.
>
>Taking summers off in places with continental climates (like most of
>the U.S.) saves on air-conditioning.
Even in those places where agriculture no longer establishes requirements for
school holidays, there are often traditions held over from a time when it
did....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
R H Draney
That person obviously did something to offend the kami of the slate....r
R H Draney
>
>In article <hc2ge...@drn.newsguy.com>,
>R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>The number one song on the day I graduated was "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton
>>John, which ended a twelve-week stretch with twelve different number
>>ones...Elton also had the two-week chart-topper immediately *preceding* the
>>string, which stands as the longest consecutive stretch of one-week champions in
>>history....
>
>/me flips through Whitburn...
>
>April 19 seems a bit early for high-school graduation for me. June
>was the normal month where I grew up.
It was actually a few days later, April 25th...I remember a lot of comment at
the time that graduation took place exceptionally early that year for some
reason...less snowfall than usual the previous winter, or something like
that....
>>I think it makes a better banner representing my generation than the number-one
>>song the day I was born ("Venus" by Frankie Avalon) or conceived ("Purple People
>>Eater" by Sheb Woolley)....r
>
>So that means you were born some time between March 9 and April 6,
>1959. (The Sheb Woolley reference doesn't help.) So you were just
>barely 16 when you graduated from high school (as was I, albeit more
>than a decade later). Now you and I are both officially Old, by
>comparison with the frosh this year, some of whom were born during the
>Clinton administration.
Your 1959 calendar is messed up or something...I was born on a Saturday, the
very day of the week that Billboard puts on its covers....r
R H Draney
>
>On Oct 25, 1:57=A0pm, R H Draney <dadoc...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>
>> The date of one's high-school graduation is important for other reasons; =
>I have
>> a theory that it identifies quite accurately the music a person thinks of=
> as "my
>> time"....
>>
>> So for me, that's Eagles, Captain & Tennille, Olivia Newton-John, Barry M=
>anilow,
>> and KC & the Sunshine Band....r
>
>Most of my favorite rock music was made five to fifteen years before I
>started listening to it (in college, in the early '80s). I reject the
>possibility that the Top 40 has anything to do with me or my time.
My theory said nothing about "favorite" music, only about the music that marks
us as members of a cohort...I too hated most (if not all) of the music being
played on top forty in the months surrounding my high school graduation, and was
listening and playing mostly "oldies"...but for good or ill, I still remember
every note of the 1975 playlists....
The ones I feel sorry for are those whose era falls later than 1st July 1989,
The Day The Music Died Gasping For Air...pop music has never managed to recover
from the blow it was dealt that day....r
Jerry Friedman
Did you call it graduation?
Apparently there's a ceremony now, with friends and family watching.
http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/12/20/6698-from-civilian-to-soldiers-5-of-5---graduating-at-last/
I didn't mean recruits take the ceremony seriously, though maybe they
do now. What I meant they take seriously, I feel sure, is finishing
the training, not having to spend any additional time at it.
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
> Wood Avens wrote:
> > It may be that your classmate was referring to
> > their graduation year from what Americans call high school, which
> > would (often) be the same year in which they started at a college or
> > university.
>
> years, it had never occurred to me that someone could start university
> in the same year they finished high school.
I had one of those a month or two ago. An Australian undergrad was
blogging about his summer reading list for his thesis, and I was
impressed that he was planning for a summer that was nine months away.
--
Jerry Friedman
HVS
Institutional and social inertia.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
James Hogg
This reminds me of the professor in the 1970s who defended the Cambridge
examination system against calls for reform in these words: "In the game
of cricket, an over consists of six balls, or, if you come from the
Antipodes, eight balls. In the same way, Cambridge tripos consists of ..."
--
James
Cheryl
Aided by the fact that many people like taking vacations in the summer,
and it's hard enough working things so that both parents can take their
holidays at the same time. If you had to also coordinate your child or
children's holidays, it would be even harder.
Anyway, just imagine the crowds at the most popular holiday spots if all
the children got the same two weeks for holidays - or the parents'
annoyance if the child in elementary school had a different two weeks
from the child in high school.
--
Cheryl
ke...@cam.ac.uk
the Omrud <usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>
>A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
>degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
>you don't "attend" them.
Ahem.
Oxford and Cambridge Colleges undertake a great deal of teaching.
But it is the University that conducts examinations and awards degrees.
Katy
tony cooper
I really don't remember, Jerry.
>Apparently there's a ceremony now, with friends and family watching.
I suppose the parade was a ceremony, but I don't remember anyone in
the stands watching the parade. If any friends or family made the
trip to Ft Leonard Wood, I wasn't aware of it. I don't remember a
speech or anything like that.
>I didn't mean recruits take the ceremony seriously, though maybe they
>do now. What I meant they take seriously, I feel sure, is finishing
>the training, not having to spend any additional time at it.
When I was in, the draft was in. I didn't know anyone outside of my
own Company during Basic, and my Company was all Reservists who were
there for their active duty requirement.
This is a guess on my part, but I suspect that there were more college
graduates and men with some college than you would find in the current
crop in Basic. Because of the draft, almost all of us were there
because we had to be there. We were all counting the days until we
were out, and not the type to get enthused over the transition from
one undesirable part of the obligation to another part.
Sara Lorimer
> I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the UK that
> one has done everything required to complete high school...that's what
> makes the term "school leaver" sound odd to us here in the US; it brings a
> connotation of someone who just walked out the door one day and didn't
> come back (what we would call a "dropout")....r
So much of a connotation that, until just now, that's what I thought it
meant.
--
SML
Sara Lorimer
> The ones I feel sorry for are those whose era falls later than 1st July
> 1989, The Day The Music Died Gasping For Air...pop music has never managed
> to recover from the blow it was dealt that day....r
The Pogues on the cover of NME?
<http://archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/>
Or, more likely, Madonna's "Express Yourself" qualified for the
Billboard Top 10?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Express_Yourself_%28Madonna_song%29>
--
SML
Chuck Riggs
<haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:10:34 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chr...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>>Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
>>usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
>>occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
>>in America.
>
>Colleges give tuition, but degrees are awarded by universities.
In AmE, students pay tuition, of course. In America, a degree can be
awarded by either a college or a university, as is also the case in
the UK, IINM, but few Americans refer to their "university degree". In
fact, I've never heard even one say it. Instead, we usually refer to
my degree or my bachelor's degree, my master's or my master's degree
or "my doctorate". Formally, mine is a BSEE, meaning a bachelor's of
science degree in electrical engineering, but BSEE is the way I
usually refer to it, in print and in speech.
>At least that was the case in the Brit university I attended (Durham).
>
>And I don't think you can have an undergraduate degree.
That's a fine point. I'm not sure.
> Once you have a
>degree, you're a graduate.
No question there.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs,
who speaks AmE, lives near Dublin, Ireland,usually spells in BrE
and hasn't corrected his email address yet
Chuck Riggs
<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>Chuck Riggs wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:19:35 GMT, the Omrud
>> <usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Don Aitken wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:43:35 -0400, "James Silverton"
>>>> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Skitt wrote on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:07:32 -0700:
>>>>>
>>>>>> [is class year the year you graduate?]
>>>>>>> I thought it's the graduation year not the year you start. Am
>>>>>>> I right?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> Yes.
>>>>> I think it's the same in Britain and the US. I know I went to a 50th
>>>>> reunion of my chemistry honors class at Glasgow in 2005. A little leeway
>>>>> seems possible since one of my class-mates at the reunion did not
>>>>> actually graduate until 1956 tho' he started in 1951 with the rest of
>>>>> us.
>>>> Outside the ranks of the academic fundraisers who organise such
>>>> events, I would not expect to find many people in the UK who would
>>>> attempt to give an exact meaning to "class of [year]". It is near to
>>>> being a purely American expression as anything could be.
>>> And if the OP is referring to high school then the word "graduation" is
>>> not relevant in BrE, where it describes only the successful completion
>>> of a university degree.
>>
>> Would a Brit not refer to his or her college degree, as Americans
>> usually do when referring to their undergraduate degree? I've
>> occasionally heard it, but "university degree" is not the usual term
>> in America.
>
>In the UK "college" can mean all sorts of things, from high schools to
>places where you take a catering course for six weeks. As a graduate of
>Manchester University, I would never say that I attended a college,
>which implies a lower level of studying than a university. "College
>degree" doesn't really mean anything in BrE.
>
>A few universities consist of colleges, but these don't teach or give
>degrees - they are places where students live and receive support; and
>you don't "attend" them.
Let us not forget Hamburger University, where my training as a Milk
shake Man and a Window Man crossed the boundary between the practical
and the theoretical, and back again.
For career information:
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/careers/hamburger_university.html
Chuck Riggs
<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:
>I just noticed the phrase "academic fundraisers"
<snip>
Thomas Jefferson called the university he designed to be built in
Charlottesville, Virginia, his Academical Village. Today, it is called
the University of Virginia or, simply, UVa.
Chuck Riggs
wrote:
>Roger Burton West wrote:
>> James Hogg wrote:
>>
>>> In the UK you finish (the equivalent of) high school without
>>> actually knowing whether you have done the equivalent of
>>> graduating. You can leave school and find out over a month later
>>> that you failed all the exams. Having a ceremony on the last day of
>>> school could be premature.
>>
>> I think it's also relevant that in the UK there's no binary measure
>> of "satisfactory completion" - your exam results may be good enough
>> for what you wanted, or not, but you'll still have some. I don't
>> think we really have an equivalent of "high school dropout".
>> (Compulsory education to age 16, soon to be 18, is surely a factor
>> here.)
>>
>
>And another comment on R H Draney's remark that the term "school leaver"
>sounds like what Americans call a "dropout": in the Republic of Ireland the
>equivalent of a high-school graduation diploma is called the Leaving
>Certificate and is considered a Good Thing.
No wonder. Looking at some of the questions, as I do from year to
year, my reaction is always the same: that the exam is a real bitch.
>In the first official language of Ireland the term for the certificate
>has no mention of "leaving". It's called the "High Testimonial"
>(Ardteistim�ireacht)
Official, o'smishal. The language of Ireland is English.
Chuck Riggs
<usenet...@gEXPUNGEmail.com> wrote:
>R H Draney wrote:
>> Wood Avens filted:
>>> On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:46:36 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>>>>> ...in the US people are also said to "graduate" when they finish
>>>>>>> their high school. ...
>>>> Mark Brader:
>>>>>> Successfully. If I'd gotten a 40% average in grade 13 and decided
>>>>>> to drop out and get a job rather than repeating the year, my high
>>>>>> school education would've been "finished", but without graduating.
>>>> Katy Jennison:
>>>>> Would "complete" have been a better word?
>>>> Yeah, I think so. But "graduate" is the normal one for me. It is
>>>> marked by the awarding of a diploma, after all. (Specifically, in
>>>> my case, the SSHGD.)
>>> Indeed, but I was lookiing for another word to explain what "graduate"
>>> implies, because in the UK "graduate" doesn't apply to high school.
>>
>> I gather that there's no ceremony or public acknowledgment in the UK that one
>> has done everything required to complete high school...that's what makes the
>> term "school leaver" sound odd to us here in the US; it brings a connotation of
>> someone who just walked out the door one day and didn't come back (what we would
>> call a "dropout")....r
>
>The only measurable achievement for completing high school in the UK is
>to reach the age of 16. Everything else is qualifications, but we don't
>have the concept of success or failure, other than for personal targets.
How wimpy and how poorly that serves both your state and your people.
Such a scheme does not help, as I see it, a young man or woman who is
about to enter the real world of competition, success and failure.
James Hogg
I was merely quoting the Shmonstitution, according to which: "8.2 The
English language is [grudgingly] recognised as a second official language."
Have you learned a "cupla focal" yet, Chuck?
--
James