Did you "graduate" high school OR "graduate from" high school?

[CTyankee]

I simply can't stand it when people say that they "graduated high school." It sounds to me like "high school" is the name of someone who went to high school and graduated!

Isn't there already a rule about this? All my life one "graduated from" high school or college. When did this change? And WHY?

:shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. It changed about the same time relatives started 'gifting' kids

on the occasion of their graduation from high school.



Why? Because people are stupid. :shrug:

[cwydro]

2. I can't stand that 'gifting" thing either.

[CTyankee]

16. In my grad thesis I used the term "referencing" and my faculty advisor,

herself an English professor, chided me so I changed it to "made reference to." I thought "referencing" was OK but she said she hated it and she was grading me so...

[cwydro]

24. Yeah, I always though "referencing" was OK.

[CTyankee]

25. I think she thought it was a slippery slope. I personally liked it but have reconsidered

based on her objection. I have a lot of respect for her...

[surrealAmerican]

30. At least she let you live.

"Referencing" is pretty bad. "Made reference to" is a bit better, but better still would be "referred to"; it sounds much less like corporate-speak than the other options do.

[CTyankee]

32. Well, it was in the context of an essay on the short story writer John Cheever.

And it was about his references to nature's forces, change of seasons, the wheeling of the constellations in the seasons, that I made the comment. "Referencing" seemed to make a certain amount of sense in the context of the author's intent with regard to the seasonal change.

The story, btw, was "The Swimmer."

It was my most difficult essay of the entire Master's project, I remember. that was interesting because he was NOT my favorite subject in the entire project...

[Left Is Write]

5. I don't think it's changed.

I think it's a regional/dialect difference.

People have been saying both forms as long as I can remember.

[CTyankee]

15. I grew up in Texas. What is the region of "graduated high school"?

I don't remember hearing the variant in Texas growing up or in the Northeast where I went to college and settled. But I am hearing it now in CT.

[Left Is Write]

18. I don't know. I grew up in the Midwest, where most people say "graduated from" -

however, I have heard many people use the other form, and I have seen it used in books also.

[JonLP24]

3. I graduated "before" high school

In reality I dropped out in the 10th grade and my GED 2 or 3 months after.

[Taverner]

4. I never graduated High School. But I have a Bachelors and a Masters.

Figure that one out :)

[old mark]

11. Funny; my wife never graduated from high school, and she has

a Bachelors, too.
(I think her high school was glad to get rid of her. There are a few good stories there, but the statute of limitations hasn't run out on some of them....)

mark

[Taverner]

12. Yep - I never even took the GED

I took the "CHSPE" - California High School Proficiency Exam.

Then I went to West Valley, Oregon State and then San Jose State.

The rest is history...

[CTyankee]

17. So basically you took a GED, right?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great. I think you did great.

I was a late bloomer so I can't talk. I finished my Bachelor's later in life and then went back for a Master's.

If it weren't for the "accelerated degree program" at my local college I wouldn't have finished my Bachelor's! Courses were 8 weeks long and I figured I could take 8 weeks of just about anything...well, algebra almost undid me but I ended up with an A (much to my great surprise) but boy, did I have to work for it! The rest was pretty easy...

[Taverner]

26. CHSPE =/= GED

GED is National

CHSPE is California only - so outside of California I have no High School degree

But I have a BA and an MS

[CTyankee]

27. Right, and who cares? It's all such crap anyway.

I "finished" my BA in a small, accelerated degree program, but the degree was the degree. Then I went on to my Master's and I have the degree. These weren't degree mill schools, BTW, but a legitimate college here that had PH.d'd professors that taught in the grad programs.

So now I have a BA and an MA, just in time for my retirement!

[Taverner]

28. Agreed

[old mark]

34. Our local community colleges give every new student a battery of tests

to determing where you are academically, and give you lists of classes accordingly. Seems to work out well.
I went back to college in my 40's, thought it was very easy, but hated HOMEWORK!!!!!


mark

[billyoc]

6. No.

[LostinVA]

7. It's technically "was graduated from"

[Gormy Cuss]

8. "I was graduated from high school" or

"I graduated from high school".

Both of the above are correct. The first is fading out of usage.

[LostinVA]

9. JINX!

[Gormy Cuss]

10. Stop sending the mind waves.

[Moondog]

13. Neither. I escaped. And the bastards will never take me alive!!!!

[redwitch]

14. I granulated from high school.

Hence the sweetness.

[CTyankee]

23. Yes, but did you GRANULATE your high school?

I think not.

But maybe...YOU DID!!!

[redwitch]

33. I tried. It was fun.

:-)

[Deep13]

19. Jesus, I thought I was a grammar Nazi. nt

[CTyankee]

21. Oh dear, did I just become a Nazi?

Sorry, I know it's bad putting up with me. I'm just an old, horrible person.

BUT I am a literacy volunteer and I spread my evil knowledge EVERYWHERE. When I tutor I make sure that my unsuspecting victim students don't know of my intent to take over their minds. I plant in them the seeds of "graduate from."

HAH! My evil plan is working!!!

[tilsammans]

31. Thank you for emphasizing this with your students!

It's "graduated FROM"!!!

Without the "from," a person looks as if s/he didn't graduate, period. FROM anywhere.

:rant:

[Bluzmann57]

20. Two words

Who cares?

[CTyankee]

22. One word. Me. nt

[obxhead]

29. I said to hell with HS

and got my GED.

[applegrove]

35. I was lucky I graduated at all. I was depressed and only passed 3 classes

in high school. Fortunately I had taken two grade 13 classes the year before. And I did night school in calculus. The weekend before my calculus exam a friend and I went up to the cottage and she wouldn't let me study..she wanted to talk about her complicated life. She was brilliant and didn't need to study. I wasn't brilliant and needed to study. How I passed that class I have not idea.