Re: "Graduate" and "gradient"


adomplayer@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I recently noticed that "graduate" can be used as a verb, to mean "to
divide into or mark with degrees or other divisions, as the scale of a
thermometer"; as opposed to the more common "to receive a degree or
diploma on completing a course of study". At first glance, the two
uses seem unrelated, but then I realized that when one goes to school
and graduates, the whole point is to enter a higher strata, so that the
school's purpose really is to "graduate" society, in the "divide or
mark with degrees" sense. The plot further thickens when we notice the
dual use of "degree" in each case. Apparently the analogy with
thermometers must have been very deliberate, at one time. Today
"graduate" (emphasis first syllable) is so deeply built into our
vocabularies that, as a noun, we totally fail to notice the underlying
pun!

Entirely wrong.

Until just a few decades ago, the school graduated the student -- the
student was graduated at the graduation ceremony.

Then, for a while, the student graduated from school.

Now, in a usage that strikes the middle-aged as subliterate, the
student graduates school.

In fact we've gone so far from explicitly being aware of the
connection, that now we often shorten "graduate" to "grad". And
although not officially in the dictionary, one could argue "grad
school" is a single word: listen to yourself pronounce it, and you'll
realize that in spite of the space, you are pronouncing it as though it
were "gradschool" or "grad-school". It's as if we have short circuited
the rootword: we started with graduatus, derived graduate, and then
took a backward step and made up a new root word "grad" from thin air!
We then duplicate the original derivation and produce the entirely
redundant "grad student"!! Oh my...

The dictionary I'm looking at says "undergrad"'s origin is "by
shortening", but I would dispute that, and suggest rather that it uses
the made-up "grad" rootword :) (btw, if you aren't an "undergrad",
does that make you a "dergrad"? just kidding)

.

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