Best joke I've read all day.

[essentialsaltes]

Sowing Atheism

If you get bored, the last line is the punchline.

Comments

[doctorray.livejournal.com]

You're right - my analogy was a bad one. But I've never seen 'West Point' used formally. Even the web site you link uses the formal USMA - admittedly with West Point in parentheses.

Perhaps a better analogy would be something like a nickname for a school. Most people I know who went to Cal say "Cal" or "Berkeley" in conversation, and I've never heard anybody say "University of California". But a the same time I'd expect to see "University of California, Berkeley" on a resume or CV, and it would sound a bit off to me to read in a formal news report something like "Mr. Johnson has a degree in applied protest studies from Cal".

But, boy, those majors sound like the West Point equivalent of the jock majors at the Nebraskas and Michigan States of the world - like "liberal studies".

[ian-tiberius.livejournal.com]

and it would sound a bit off to me to read in a formal news report something like "Mr. Johnson has a degree in applied protest studies from Cal".

Same here, but I doubt I'd bat an eye if I read "Mr. Johnson has a degree in applied protest studies from Berkeley." (Assuming I missed the "applied protest studies" part.)

[doctorray.livejournal.com]

For me, it would depend on how formal the source was. I wouldn't bat an eye in a blog posting, but in something like the NY Times, I'd think "there's one the editor missed!". But being from Boston, I know there's a Berkeley Conservatory there to be confused with the better-known UC Berkeley. If I saw "Mr Johnson has a degree... from UC Berkeley" I wouldn't bat an eye either.

But then I've been grading essays recently, so maybe my prose-meter is set a bit too far over to "formal"...

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

It's neither here nor there, but the music school is Berklee.