I think there's a subset of #2 often at play: you want someone to believe that you might be fun, and you realize that person (quite rightly) is unlikely to believe that anyone who went to an Ivy could be fun. In short, you are hoping to have sex at some point in the future.
I have two sets of unread books. Books that are small enough to carry to work on the train and books that are too big to carry to work on the train. Books in the first set are much more likely to be read. Mimesis is in the second set.
4. Embarrassment about what little you've done with the education/degree. Certain schools have such magical names that it is somewhat humiliating to have gone to one of those schools and not be doing anything interesting or impressive with one's life.
Re: ##4,6: if there are any male engineers near you, ask how long they used to try to wait before revealing their occupation to women. Same thing, different Bat Channel.
hmm. I'm guilty of this. My mom even does it when talking about me to other people. I think it's mostly reason 2 plus hardly anyone I have encountered from home even knows my school exists, so it's easier not to get into specifics.
Having been privy to people conversations among Harvardites about the effectiveness of "dropping the H-bomb" (their phrase!) when trying to attract members of the opposite sex, I think that the variance between 1 & 2 is not person to person, but rather situation to situation.
speaking as someone about to embark on a professional degree at a very prestigious ivy league school, i can say that my personal reasons for being deliberately vague about my destination include, among them, #2 above and also a variant of #3 - i know full well that i am one of those idiots.
Re 9, not the same at all, Tim. Ivy League education isn't a Nerd indicator like an engineering degree; it's more Money and Social Elite. Mentioning the Ivy is surely an advantage in situations such as you describe, perhaps with some perfunctory beating around of the bush to counteract the braggart vibes.
While I didn't go to an Ivy, I did go to a school with a very good national rep, and an outstanding local one. When I have (rarely) felt the urge to not mention where I went to college, it has has never been because I was worried that someone might not think I was fun and thus might not sleep with me. Thanks a lot Tim--now I have another reason to worry. My dick just died a little.
Shoot, I'm going to have the opposite problem. What am I going to tell people when I don't want them to think I'm fun? "I went to school in the South?"
A lot of people hate Ivy Leaguers. Others like them for the wrong reasons. Others respect them but are intimidated and just want to get out of the way.
Playing the Harvard card in a professional-networking situation is a lot more routine and successful, I'd guess, at least for someone who actually has something on the ball (excluding, that is, theatre majors and the like).
I mumble about it, but MIT is a bit of a special problem socially, complicated by having dropped out of MIT -- I come off as a nerd, but a dimwitted nerd. If I'm telling a story from my MIT years, I do try to slide by with 'Boston'.
5. Because people don't know what the hell school it is. My sister went to Dartmouth. Upon moving to the South, people said, "Where?" They just had no clue.
But I'd say #2. I don't ask people where they went to school. For me, that's like asking people at school what they got on their SATs.
But you can tell which of the first 2 it is (I think 3 doesn't really occur) by what modifiers they add. If someone asks, where'd X go to school, add X responds: "A small school in Massachusetts", it's 1. If they aren't really coy about it, they don't care if you know, they just don't want to push it on you. If they are coy, they really want you to press.
I went to Harvard Law, and I can guarantee that there is no way to win this. People always ask where I went to school, and if I come right out and say "Harvard" they almost ALWAYS say something like "Ohh aren't you a bigshot" or whatnot, usually implying that I am arrogant for "name-dropping." On the other hand, when I say avoid it ("in Boston," "the NorthEast", etc.) they invariably ask follow-up questions to pin me down and then act annoyed that I didn't come out and say it right away (as if I'm trying to be falsely modest). There is no way to win here.
dope, i agree, and i try to prevent this as much as possible by just telling people i'm moving to boston without mentioning my return to academics etc. not exactly 100% effective.
one particularly great response was "i didn't know you were that smart". so, now i'm bound between being arrogant/too smart for attending harvard, and arrogant/too stupid to attend in the first place.
I have no doubt that you're fun, L.'s Mom, but then I think we've established that I'm closer in age to you than to L. and the people she might want to have fun with.
I agree w/# 26. I usually said that I was in a grad program in Boston, and if pressed, said I was at Harvard. At least that way I didn't come off as name-dropping from the get-go.
Washerdreyer: I've heard Harvardians talk about "dropping the H-bomb" as well. And it apparently, or at least occasionally, works. Guess that tuition does get you something...
Oh, the person who used to work in the office next to where I used to work went to harvard and would always just say "my school", claiming that if she revealed that she had gone to harvard, no guys would talk to her (this must have been habit since she at that time had a long-term boyfriend to whom she's now engaged--or it could have extended to potential friends as well), something which I found baffling, since she was completely hot and finding out that she went to harvard would in no way have diminished that in my eyes.
No, I just thought it was another creepy instance of my agreeing with you, all the more creepy for my apparent ability to intuit what you will say in the future. (Surely there's a German word for this "front-following" phenomenon.)
Well, back at school, I know there were some people who would go to Rutgers to pick up girls by dropping the P-bomb. Later in life, they would regret this decision, as they would probably catch the C-bomb or H-bomb or GW-bomb from the Rutger's girls.
I had an English professor (at a non-Ivy League school whose name nevertheless brings up its own set of connotations) who would always refer to Harvard as "the Harvard school for boys."
I think it's also context-dependent. Sometimes the people who are asking you will change the way they treat you, either by pandering to you or by getting hostile, and other times they won't. And you don't know which one it is at the time the inquiry is made.
But it's a good bet that when someone's querying you for the name of the school you went to, they have some kind of agenda about it. So sometimes I withhold because I don't really want to play to that agenda, whatever it is.
It's unwinnable, of course. But sometimes you do get away with it, and it turns out the person didn't care all that much anyway, and then, of course, you realize it would have been safe to have told them.
Tonight I was coaching a Special Olympics athlete, who asked me if I had gone to the technical college on the other side of the harbor. Nope, I told him, although I'd always admired the view that school had. It was more satisfying than 90% of the conversations I have about where I got my degree.
Ok, everyone's down on the "where'd you go to school" question, but I admit that it's standard small talk fare for me, because I figure odds are decent that I know someone who went there, or at least know something about the school. But I guess I'll cut it out.
I just tell people that, although I attended the Sorbonne and did well there, I was forced for administrative reasons to receive my degree from Oxford.
Michael, why do you cast these unjust aspersions at me? I love the common people! I want nothing more than to communicate with and be understood by them! Is this not a democratic oleogarchy? Is it my fault they're so dumb? When I see a Common Person of whatever description, I clutch him to my bosom! I say: "I love you just as if you were as good as me!" Further I say: "I don't care if you're ugly or stupid!" I love the great hero of our nation who is the working dog more than any other man and/or any other beast. I say phoo on the fact that he is trash! I disregard his lowly station.
I certainly ask newly met people where they went to school, but I'm only one year and a couple of months out, and I think it will eventually be phased out of my conversational repetoire.
the same thing happens with cities as with schools, too, in certain circumstances. i have a friend who grew up in a very notoriously rich and snooty suburb of chicago, and whenever people ask her where she's from, she says something like "i grew up north of the city." apparently, if she just says "the suburbs" people will automatically ask which one and then make all kinds of assumptions that she is a rich stuck-up bitch.
I grew up in rural North Carolina and went to Duke. I always tried to avoid mentionning it both because good southern manners demand it (to mention it on being asked explicitly is polite, but to bring it up yourself is just bragging) and because of the whole anti-Yankee stereotype. I didn't want to get beat up, and the fact that I have an obviously native drawl didn't help.
in which case Chicago would still be the correct answer.
If the person is asking what part of Chicago you are from, then the correct response would be to give the name of your neighborhood. Otherwise is folly.
I agree that context makes a whole lot of difference. My school had a stronger reputation in Asia, where the huge weight on where you went to school is a littly freaky. One way to avoid the whole thing, if you went to a school that had seperate colleges for different majors, is to just say the name of the college. No need to lie, and no false-modesty vibes.
Not that I've been in this situation, but imagine you're attending college in the Midwest, and people frequently ask you where your from. Further, you've noticed people at your school answering that they're from New York (tacitly city not state) in some kind of misguided attempt to look cosmopolitan or tough or whatever image they're trying to project. Furthermore, people who actually are from New York City notice and are bothered by this. Wouldn't it make sense, in order to be scrupulously honest and avoid an error you see others making, to say "I'm from a suburb of New York City"?
NY is an odd case. If you are from one of the buroughs, you are from NY. If you are from a suburb, I think you are still from NY, but not if the suburb is located in a different state, in which case you could say either "the NYC area" or the state you are from. If the students in question were from upstate NY, they should not answer "NY" but "upstate NY" so as to reduce confusion.
DC is similar, in that the actual city area is so small, and many of the people who should say "DC area" live in VA or MD. Such as myself, growing up. And so I would sometimes say, "northern VA," and sometimes "the DC area." Sometimes people from DC would say "you are not from DC, punk;" sometimes people from southern VA would say, "why do you need to qualify it as 'northern' VA?" Those people are all assholes. If someone asks you a question, answer it.
When people ask you a certain question, maybe it could give rise to different interpretations, but in general we know the information that they are requesting. If someone asks you where you went to school, they aren't asking you to describe what part of the country your school is located in; they are asking you what the name of the school is. Maybe the question is impertinent, but it has been asked and you should answer it. If the person asking the question is then put-off because the place you went was so fucking great, and thereafter becomes defensive, that person is an asshole. Go talk to someone else.
If someone asks where you are from, they want to know where you are from. General regional description is adequate. Do so as clearly as possible. If the questioner doesn't like the way you described the region, because it cheapens the "true" inhabitants of a smaller subset of that region, he/she is an asshole. Go talk to someone else.
how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
Duke is not considered of the south even by those of us living in Durham. A quick stroll through any campus parking lot, looking at license plates, will reveal why many here jokingly refer to Duke as the University of New Jersey-Durham.
(Disclosure: we moved to Durham when I was 9 because my father entered med school at Duke. I went to UNC, my brother to NCSU, so all our bases are covered.)
There is no basketball program but the one basketball program, and "Tarheels" is its name. Until you accept that simple truth, you will live your days in error.
The tarheels have an excellent program, no doubt. In recent years, less talented Duke teams have gotten the better of them more often than not. It happens the same way with Miamia and Florida State.
It's odd that UNC fans hate Duke much more so than vice versa.
A lot of idiots went to Duke and I knew them well.
The amount of specificity can also depend on the context. For example, when I meet someone who says they're from San Francisco, and I mention I'm from the Bay Area too (but I never say I'm from San Francisco, because I've found that most people know where Berkeley is) then it often comes out that they're not from SF itself but from a nearby community that most people from the Bay Area would have heard of, but most people not from the Bay Area probably don't know.
When the South decided to get smarter, importing Northern smarts proved more cost-effective than actually trying to educate the locals. That goes for the U of Texas too.
I just tell people that I live in the center of the hipster universe and people immediately know I live in Portland, Oregon.
Further, you've noticed people at your school answering that they're from New York (tacitly city not state) in some kind of misguided attempt to look cosmopolitan or tough or whatever image they're trying to project.
I was raised in Manhattan, but I've always understood that when you're out of state, saying "I'm from New York" means that you're from somewhere within commuting range of NYC -- not particularly phony or pretensious, just more meaningful to most people than "I'm from Great Neck.". To accurately convey where I'm from, I always said something along the lines of "I'm from New York; I was brought up in the city."
72: ptm: how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
Hey, I didn't say it makes sense, but as apostropher noted in 82, the association of Duke with New Yorkers / Yankees / carpetbaggers / outsiders is pretty strong.
being originally more-or-less from Arlington, I ran into the same "you are not from DC, punk," problem, Text. So the circumlocution of "just outside DC" became where I am from.
When talking to anyone south of Prince William County, of course, I was from "The People's Republic of Northern Virginia," just to confirm whatever sterotypes I could...
Wolfson in his attempts to wipe out innoculous typos has only succeded creating an enviroment where a virulent new strain of commenter-attacking typos can thrive.
apos: that is true, and this year looks good. For the past couple years, UNC has had the more athletic team, though, and even for a couple years before that, had a much more talented team than they let on, what with coaching issues.
I'm personally glad to see them play well. Better them than Maryland.
Three years ago, we were starting a walk-on and a football player. The past two years, yes, they've been loaded. Ridiculously so. This year, I'm afraid, the cupboard is just about bare and I foresee a long, frustrating season.
The football player was Ronald Curry (and sometimes Julius Peppers, who always seemed so jolly while out rebounding us) -- correct? I think most teams would take those football players.
Duke went through a period where it was starting a soccer player -- a short, white one. Albeit, ten years or so ago.
I played against Ronald Curry in highschool (football) and he made my entire team look like parapalegic school children.
I was referring to Peppers. Curry was a legit basketball star in high school and had been recruited all over. Peppers, however, got by mostly on freakish physical ability. I once ended up standing behind him in line at McDonalds and couldn't believe how unbelievably wide he was. Like a statue. Not that his past seasons haven't been impressive enough, but I suspect this will be his real breakout year in the NFL. Curry's dropped into a really good situation with the Raiders this year, too.
text, i think people who live in chicago find it annoying if you imply that you grew up actually in the city of chicago if you did not. plus, hardly anyone raises their families in the city proper (particularly when white), so it seems a little weird.
it all depends on the context - i mean, if you are in california you can just tell people you are from chicago. but in the city itself, people want to know specifics, and they pretty much know most of the suburbs, so they want to know which one.
I read somewhere that Peppers grew up in Durham but that the Duke football team did not even try to recruit him. Inept bastards.
Peppers had a huge rookie season, didn't he? He always looked so jolly on the court, like a big kid. I could not help but like him.
I wish Curry had focused on football in college, not just because I root for Duke. He should still be playing quarterback somewhere. His highschool was actually rivals with Michael Vicks'. I watched the two of them play on film leading up to our game against Curry's team. Curry was, at the time, a better player.
silvana -- yes, that makes sense. Sometimes when people ask where you are from, they mean the neighborhood. So it seems wrongheaded to me not to give them the information they request, on tha basis that they cannot handle what an amazingly rich suburb you are from.
Everyone seems to be tiptoeing around the real issue: "Krzyzewski" is Polish for "Satan's minion". Everyone who aims to live a good, decent, and just life knows that the '91 UNLV-Duke semifinal was an officiating travesty.
I think Peppers actually grew up in Bailey, over in Nash County. Duke has a tough row to hoe recruiting football players. As easy as it is to curse their basketball program for the seemingly effortless ability to win year after year, I can't help but root for their (and Wake Forest's) football team since they're always so outmanned against most of the the rest of the ACC. Football just isn't a friendly sport for small schools in big conferences.
UNC's perennial haplessness in football is a mystery to me, though knocking off Miami last year was almost as exciting as taking the basketball title (and waaaay more surprising).
'91 UNLV-Duke semifinal
I'd never been so conflicted about a sports match-up as that. I just couldn't come up with a scenario where both teams would lose.
No, my siblings are all younger (and I'm obviously my mama's favorite, anyway). The case I had in mind was George W. Bush. He went to Yale, Neil went to Tulane; does anyone doubt that Mrs. Bush loves George best? "Better with the ladies" assertion also based on conjecture and not meant in any way as comment on my personal life, thankyouverymuch.
Is this the place to go to say that I am reading _Mimesis_, by Erich Auerbach, and that it is truly excellent?
Posted by Brad DeLong | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:13 PM
I think there's a subset of #2 often at play: you want someone to believe that you might be fun, and you realize that person (quite rightly) is unlikely to believe that anyone who went to an Ivy could be fun. In short, you are hoping to have sex at some point in the future.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:15 PM
Sure, why not?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:15 PM
3 to 1. Definitely not to 2, which is wrong.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:17 PM
Different thread.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:17 PM
you want someone to believe that you might be fun
No way. Gotta be the bonus points for modesty thing.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:18 PM
I have two sets of unread books. Books that are small enough to carry to work on the train and books that are too big to carry to work on the train. Books in the first set are much more likely to be read. Mimesis is in the second set.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:18 PM
There's also:
4. Embarrassment about what little you've done with the education/degree. Certain schools have such magical names that it is somewhat humiliating to have gone to one of those schools and not be doing anything interesting or impressive with one's life.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:21 PM
Re: ##4,6: if there are any male engineers near you, ask how long they used to try to wait before revealing their occupation to women. Same thing, different Bat Channel.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:26 PM
Ah, that's a good one, I'll add it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:26 PM
pjs,
Harvard prints an alumni book for reunions that people feel pressure to either:
1. explain what a big success they have been, or
2. give an adequate excuse.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:28 PM
hmm. I'm guilty of this. My mom even does it when talking about me to other people. I think it's mostly reason 2 plus hardly anyone I have encountered from home even knows my school exists, so it's easier not to get into specifics.
Posted by tara | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:29 PM
Having been privy to people conversations among Harvardites about the effectiveness of "dropping the H-bomb" (their phrase!) when trying to attract members of the opposite sex, I think that the variance between 1 & 2 is not person to person, but rather situation to situation.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:30 PM
"People" is a pretty strange typo for "multiple," I must say.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:32 PM
speaking as someone about to embark on a professional degree at a very prestigious ivy league school, i can say that my personal reasons for being deliberately vague about my destination include, among them, #2 above and also a variant of #3 - i know full well that i am one of those idiots.
Posted by kim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:34 PM
Re 9, not the same at all, Tim. Ivy League education isn't a Nerd indicator like an engineering degree; it's more Money and Social Elite. Mentioning the Ivy is surely an advantage in situations such as you describe, perhaps with some perfunctory beating around of the bush to counteract the braggart vibes.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:34 PM
While I didn't go to an Ivy, I did go to a school with a very good national rep, and an outstanding local one. When I have (rarely) felt the urge to not mention where I went to college, it has has never been because I was worried that someone might not think I was fun and thus might not sleep with me. Thanks a lot Tim--now I have another reason to worry. My dick just died a little.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:35 PM
Kim, unaccountably, I feel compelled to defend your intelligence and acuity. Shout your school from the rooftops!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:37 PM
Shoot, I'm going to have the opposite problem. What am I going to tell people when I don't want them to think I'm fun? "I went to school in the South?"
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:40 PM
Try "My mom goes everywhere I go."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:41 PM
A lot of people hate Ivy Leaguers. Others like them for the wrong reasons. Others respect them but are intimidated and just want to get out of the way.
Playing the Harvard card in a professional-networking situation is a lot more routine and successful, I'd guess, at least for someone who actually has something on the ball (excluding, that is, theatre majors and the like).
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:44 PM
I mumble about it, but MIT is a bit of a special problem socially, complicated by having dropped out of MIT -- I come off as a nerd, but a dimwitted nerd. If I'm telling a story from my MIT years, I do try to slide by with 'Boston'.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:45 PM
ogged, how kind!
eeeeehhhhhhhh, harvard law. for shame. moreso reading the comments now.
but i promise, i was on the pol theory PhD track before i made The Big Switch!
Posted by kim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:47 PM
What am I going to tell people when I don't want them to think I'm fun?
Ask them if they have a personal relationship with Jesus.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:48 PM
What about:
5. Because people don't know what the hell school it is. My sister went to Dartmouth. Upon moving to the South, people said, "Where?" They just had no clue.
But I'd say #2. I don't ask people where they went to school. For me, that's like asking people at school what they got on their SATs.
But you can tell which of the first 2 it is (I think 3 doesn't really occur) by what modifiers they add. If someone asks, where'd X go to school, add X responds: "A small school in Massachusetts", it's 1. If they aren't really coy about it, they don't care if you know, they just don't want to push it on you. If they are coy, they really want you to press.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 4:56 PM
I went to Harvard Law, and I can guarantee that there is no way to win this. People always ask where I went to school, and if I come right out and say "Harvard" they almost ALWAYS say something like "Ohh aren't you a bigshot" or whatnot, usually implying that I am arrogant for "name-dropping." On the other hand, when I say avoid it ("in Boston," "the NorthEast", etc.) they invariably ask follow-up questions to pin me down and then act annoyed that I didn't come out and say it right away (as if I'm trying to be falsely modest). There is no way to win here.
Posted by Dope | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:00 PM
Based on the Ivy-Leaguers I've encountered, I assume that people who went to those schools have more money than sense. So put me down for #3.
Posted by hank | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:03 PM
dope, i agree, and i try to prevent this as much as possible by just telling people i'm moving to boston without mentioning my return to academics etc. not exactly 100% effective.
one particularly great response was "i didn't know you were that smart". so, now i'm bound between being arrogant/too smart for attending harvard, and arrogant/too stupid to attend in the first place.
Posted by kim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:05 PM
There is no way to win here.
You mean other than commanding respect, being your mother's favorite, doing better with the ladies, and making a couple hundred grand a year?
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:05 PM
L., you have a sibling at Harvard?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:13 PM
Re #20 Cheap shot Ogged. Besides, I'm fun.
Posted by L.'s Mom | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:32 PM
It might have been a cheap shot if you hadn't just confirmed it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:34 PM
Thus demonstrating the fun aspect.
Posted by L.'s Mom | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:36 PM
I have no doubt that you're fun, L.'s Mom, but then I think we've established that I'm closer in age to you than to L. and the people she might want to have fun with.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:39 PM
Well, we established something like that anyway, I'm fuzzy on the details.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:40 PM
Don't mess with her, ogged, that woman put me through hell. I tell you this because I love you.
Posted by L's Dad | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:49 PM
L.'s mom put you through hell?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:50 PM
Oh, see, I get an email, so I see your email address first, not the clever name you try to confuse me with, John.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 5:51 PM
I agree w/# 26. I usually said that I was in a grad program in Boston, and if pressed, said I was at Harvard. At least that way I didn't come off as name-dropping from the get-go.
Posted by kt | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:07 PM
Washerdreyer: I've heard Harvardians talk about "dropping the H-bomb" as well. And it apparently, or at least occasionally, works. Guess that tuition does get you something...
Posted by Ezra | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:21 PM
Hasn't this phenomenon been discussed here before?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:26 PM
Oh, the person who used to work in the office next to where I used to work went to harvard and would always just say "my school", claiming that if she revealed that she had gone to harvard, no guys would talk to her (this must have been habit since she at that time had a long-term boyfriend to whom she's now engaged--or it could have extended to potential friends as well), something which I found baffling, since she was completely hot and finding out that she went to harvard would in no way have diminished that in my eyes.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:29 PM
#42 goes to my claim, doesn't it, Ben?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:34 PM
Not everything I say is meant to contend with something you said, Tim.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:36 PM
Hasn't this phenomenon been discussed here before?
Yes, but not satisfactorily.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:48 PM
Wolfson:
No, I just thought it was another creepy instance of my agreeing with you, all the more creepy for my apparent ability to intuit what you will say in the future. (Surely there's a German word for this "front-following" phenomenon.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 6:51 PM
MEJBlog@gmail.com
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 7:22 PM
Well, back at school, I know there were some people who would go to Rutgers to pick up girls by dropping the P-bomb. Later in life, they would regret this decision, as they would probably catch the C-bomb or H-bomb or GW-bomb from the Rutger's girls.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 8:06 PM
4 is big.
I used to say that I went to Radcliffe, but then they destroyed it, and that didn't work anymore.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 8:26 PM
I had an English professor (at a non-Ivy League school whose name nevertheless brings up its own set of connotations) who would always refer to Harvard as "the Harvard school for boys."
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 9:35 PM
I think it's also context-dependent. Sometimes the people who are asking you will change the way they treat you, either by pandering to you or by getting hostile, and other times they won't. And you don't know which one it is at the time the inquiry is made.
But it's a good bet that when someone's querying you for the name of the school you went to, they have some kind of agenda about it. So sometimes I withhold because I don't really want to play to that agenda, whatever it is.
It's unwinnable, of course. But sometimes you do get away with it, and it turns out the person didn't care all that much anyway, and then, of course, you realize it would have been safe to have told them.
Tonight I was coaching a Special Olympics athlete, who asked me if I had gone to the technical college on the other side of the harbor. Nope, I told him, although I'd always admired the view that school had. It was more satisfying than 90% of the conversations I have about where I got my degree.
Posted by Scheherazade | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 9:43 PM
Ok, everyone's down on the "where'd you go to school" question, but I admit that it's standard small talk fare for me, because I figure odds are decent that I know someone who went there, or at least know something about the school. But I guess I'll cut it out.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 9:48 PM
I just tell people that, although I attended the Sorbonne and did well there, I was forced for administrative reasons to receive my degree from Oxford.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 9:49 PM
What percentage of Americans do you figure know about the Sorbonne?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 9:53 PM
What makes you think Ben wants his audience to know to what he's referring?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:03 PM
I was genuinely curious about what people thought the answer was, Michael.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:05 PM
You're an odd fellow.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:06 PM
Michael, why do you cast these unjust aspersions at me? I love the common people! I want nothing more than to communicate with and be understood by them! Is this not a democratic oleogarchy? Is it my fault they're so dumb? When I see a Common Person of whatever description, I clutch him to my bosom! I say: "I love you just as if you were as good as me!" Further I say: "I don't care if you're ugly or stupid!" I love the great hero of our nation who is the working dog more than any other man and/or any other beast. I say phoo on the fact that he is trash! I disregard his lowly station.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:18 PM
In answer to your question, ogged, I have no idea.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:18 PM
Good to see Pogo quotes.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:27 PM
I certainly ask newly met people where they went to school, but I'm only one year and a couple of months out, and I think it will eventually be phased out of my conversational repetoire.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:27 PM
I just don't meet new people. Saves a lot of bother.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 10:31 PM
For them.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 11:02 PM
Ah, I am sore wounded!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 11:05 PM
You mean other than commanding respect, being your mother's favorite, doing better with the ladies, and making a couple hundred grand a year?
Ah, now we know what the "L" stands for.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 11:20 PM
Would L's mom go by that name if what you are hypothesizing were the case? Other than that, good observation.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 8-05 11:26 PM
Why is ["Duh"] better than [eyeroll + "OK"]?
Isn't it also also hegemonic?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:24 AM
Was an endorsement of the former made in this thread?
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 6:35 AM
the same thing happens with cities as with schools, too, in certain circumstances. i have a friend who grew up in a very notoriously rich and snooty suburb of chicago, and whenever people ask her where she's from, she says something like "i grew up north of the city." apparently, if she just says "the suburbs" people will automatically ask which one and then make all kinds of assumptions that she is a rich stuck-up bitch.
i thought that was pretty interesting.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 8:07 AM
or one could just say "Chicago." But then the fancy neighborhood would never come out, I guess.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 8:12 AM
I grew up in rural North Carolina and went to Duke. I always tried to avoid mentionning it both because good southern manners demand it (to mention it on being asked explicitly is polite, but to bring it up yourself is just bragging) and because of the whole anti-Yankee stereotype. I didn't want to get beat up, and the fact that I have an obviously native drawl didn't help.
Posted by ptm | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 8:44 AM
tarrou: look at the title
text: it seems clear that Silvana's friend was talking to other Chicagoans.
ptm: how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 9:41 AM
Michael, maybe he didn't want to be a victim of the "southerners are anti-yankee" stereotype?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 9:57 AM
in which case Chicago would still be the correct answer.
If the person is asking what part of Chicago you are from, then the correct response would be to give the name of your neighborhood. Otherwise is folly.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:16 AM
I agree that context makes a whole lot of difference. My school had a stronger reputation in Asia, where the huge weight on where you went to school is a littly freaky. One way to avoid the whole thing, if you went to a school that had seperate colleges for different majors, is to just say the name of the college. No need to lie, and no false-modesty vibes.
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:19 AM
Text-
Not that I've been in this situation, but imagine you're attending college in the Midwest, and people frequently ask you where your from. Further, you've noticed people at your school answering that they're from New York (tacitly city not state) in some kind of misguided attempt to look cosmopolitan or tough or whatever image they're trying to project. Furthermore, people who actually are from New York City notice and are bothered by this. Wouldn't it make sense, in order to be scrupulously honest and avoid an error you see others making, to say "I'm from a suburb of New York City"?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:20 AM
NY is an odd case. If you are from one of the buroughs, you are from NY. If you are from a suburb, I think you are still from NY, but not if the suburb is located in a different state, in which case you could say either "the NYC area" or the state you are from. If the students in question were from upstate NY, they should not answer "NY" but "upstate NY" so as to reduce confusion.
DC is similar, in that the actual city area is so small, and many of the people who should say "DC area" live in VA or MD. Such as myself, growing up. And so I would sometimes say, "northern VA," and sometimes "the DC area." Sometimes people from DC would say "you are not from DC, punk;" sometimes people from southern VA would say, "why do you need to qualify it as 'northern' VA?" Those people are all assholes. If someone asks you a question, answer it.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:35 AM
When people ask you a certain question, maybe it could give rise to different interpretations, but in general we know the information that they are requesting. If someone asks you where you went to school, they aren't asking you to describe what part of the country your school is located in; they are asking you what the name of the school is. Maybe the question is impertinent, but it has been asked and you should answer it. If the person asking the question is then put-off because the place you went was so fucking great, and thereafter becomes defensive, that person is an asshole. Go talk to someone else.
If someone asks where you are from, they want to know where you are from. General regional description is adequate. Do so as clearly as possible. If the questioner doesn't like the way you described the region, because it cheapens the "true" inhabitants of a smaller subset of that region, he/she is an asshole. Go talk to someone else.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:40 AM
ptm:
...and went to Duke.
Are you sure it's not simple shame making you hold your tongue?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:42 AM
I went there, and rarely hold mine.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:45 AM
Are you also from Chicago, text?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:46 AM
how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
Duke is not considered of the south even by those of us living in Durham. A quick stroll through any campus parking lot, looking at license plates, will reveal why many here jokingly refer to Duke as the University of New Jersey-Durham.
(Disclosure: we moved to Durham when I was 9 because my father entered med school at Duke. I went to UNC, my brother to NCSU, so all our bases are covered.)
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:47 AM
Text:
There is no basketball program but the one basketball program, and "Tarheels" is its name. Until you accept that simple truth, you will live your days in error.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:48 AM
I am from the DC area but presently live in Chicago.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:49 AM
Ah, ok.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:49 AM
The tarheels have an excellent program, no doubt. In recent years, less talented Duke teams have gotten the better of them more often than not. It happens the same way with Miamia and Florida State.
It's odd that UNC fans hate Duke much more so than vice versa.
A lot of idiots went to Duke and I knew them well.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:53 AM
The amount of specificity can also depend on the context. For example, when I meet someone who says they're from San Francisco, and I mention I'm from the Bay Area too (but I never say I'm from San Francisco, because I've found that most people know where Berkeley is) then it often comes out that they're not from SF itself but from a nearby community that most people from the Bay Area would have heard of, but most people not from the Bay Area probably don't know.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:54 AM
When the South decided to get smarter, importing Northern smarts proved more cost-effective than actually trying to educate the locals. That goes for the U of Texas too.
I just tell people that I live in the center of the hipster universe and people immediately know I live in Portland, Oregon.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 10:57 AM
Further, you've noticed people at your school answering that they're from New York (tacitly city not state) in some kind of misguided attempt to look cosmopolitan or tough or whatever image they're trying to project.
I was raised in Manhattan, but I've always understood that when you're out of state, saying "I'm from New York" means that you're from somewhere within commuting range of NYC -- not particularly phony or pretensious, just more meaningful to most people than "I'm from Great Neck.". To accurately convey where I'm from, I always said something along the lines of "I'm from New York; I was brought up in the city."
So, what eb said.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:04 AM
72: ptm: how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
Hey, I didn't say it makes sense, but as apostropher noted in 82, the association of Duke with New Yorkers / Yankees / carpetbaggers / outsiders is pretty strong.
Posted by ptm | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:05 AM
re 72: I thought the title was pretty plainly facetious.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:05 AM
pretentious
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:10 AM
how can one have a drawl and also be victim of an anti-yankee stereotype?
My old roommate's grandfather, from Missouri:
To a southerner, a Yankee is a northerner.
To a northerner, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To a New Englander, a Yankee is someone from Vermont.
To someone in Vermont, a Yankee is someone who eats pie for breakfast.
I guess that makes me a southern Yankee.
See also, but it loses something wtithout the last line.
So to answer the question, I guess the grits partisans can be rather trying.
Posted by Oz | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:20 AM
Oz, that's great.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:22 AM
less talented Duke teams
Pshaw. Duke lands one the top 5 recruiting classes in the country year in and year out.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:24 AM
being originally more-or-less from Arlington, I ran into the same "you are not from DC, punk," problem, Text. So the circumlocution of "just outside DC" became where I am from.
When talking to anyone south of Prince William County, of course, I was from "The People's Republic of Northern Virginia," just to confirm whatever sterotypes I could...
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:41 AM
re: pretentious
Me, or the title? Or am I reaching out and grabbing a comment that has nothing to do with the subject at (my) hand?
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:42 AM
Nope, just an acknowledgment of a typo in my earlier comment.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:43 AM
She was correcting her own spelling in 89.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:44 AM
On the contrary, I thought that both Tarrou and Ogged were being quite pretentious with their "Duh", etc.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 11:52 AM
Wolfson in his attempts to wipe out innoculous typos has only succeded creating an enviroment where a virulent new strain of commenter-attacking typos can thrive.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:03 PM
Only 3 typos in your comment there, joe.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:06 PM
Of the spelling variety, that is.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:07 PM
"Innoculous" is from "innoculate" perhaps.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:09 PM
Even the plain old non-attacking typos are thriving.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:09 PM
"Innoculous" is from "innoculate" perhaps.
Hmm. That would be clever, indeed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:12 PM
apos: that is true, and this year looks good. For the past couple years, UNC has had the more athletic team, though, and even for a couple years before that, had a much more talented team than they let on, what with coaching issues.
I'm personally glad to see them play well. Better them than Maryland.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:12 PM
Both teams are very talented every year, don't get me wrong.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:15 PM
Three years ago, we were starting a walk-on and a football player. The past two years, yes, they've been loaded. Ridiculously so. This year, I'm afraid, the cupboard is just about bare and I foresee a long, frustrating season.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:17 PM
The football player was Ronald Curry (and sometimes Julius Peppers, who always seemed so jolly while out rebounding us) -- correct? I think most teams would take those football players.
Duke went through a period where it was starting a soccer player -- a short, white one. Albeit, ten years or so ago.
I played against Ronald Curry in highschool (football) and he made my entire team look like parapalegic school children.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:22 PM
Serbs. Lithuanians. You're recruiting in the wrong areas.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:29 PM
I was referring to Peppers. Curry was a legit basketball star in high school and had been recruited all over. Peppers, however, got by mostly on freakish physical ability. I once ended up standing behind him in line at McDonalds and couldn't believe how unbelievably wide he was. Like a statue. Not that his past seasons haven't been impressive enough, but I suspect this will be his real breakout year in the NFL. Curry's dropped into a really good situation with the Raiders this year, too.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:31 PM
couldn't believe how unbelievably
I can't believe I just wrote that.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:34 PM
a little late - i went out to lunch.
text, i think people who live in chicago find it annoying if you imply that you grew up actually in the city of chicago if you did not. plus, hardly anyone raises their families in the city proper (particularly when white), so it seems a little weird.
it all depends on the context - i mean, if you are in california you can just tell people you are from chicago. but in the city itself, people want to know specifics, and they pretty much know most of the suburbs, so they want to know which one.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:36 PM
I read somewhere that Peppers grew up in Durham but that the Duke football team did not even try to recruit him. Inept bastards.
Peppers had a huge rookie season, didn't he? He always looked so jolly on the court, like a big kid. I could not help but like him.
I wish Curry had focused on football in college, not just because I root for Duke. He should still be playing quarterback somewhere. His highschool was actually rivals with Michael Vicks'. I watched the two of them play on film leading up to our game against Curry's team. Curry was, at the time, a better player.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:38 PM
silvana -- yes, that makes sense. Sometimes when people ask where you are from, they mean the neighborhood. So it seems wrongheaded to me not to give them the information they request, on tha basis that they cannot handle what an amazingly rich suburb you are from.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 12:41 PM
text:
Everyone seems to be tiptoeing around the real issue: "Krzyzewski" is Polish for "Satan's minion". Everyone who aims to live a good, decent, and just life knows that the '91 UNLV-Duke semifinal was an officiating travesty.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 1:01 PM
I think Peppers actually grew up in Bailey, over in Nash County. Duke has a tough row to hoe recruiting football players. As easy as it is to curse their basketball program for the seemingly effortless ability to win year after year, I can't help but root for their (and Wake Forest's) football team since they're always so outmanned against most of the the rest of the ACC. Football just isn't a friendly sport for small schools in big conferences.
UNC's perennial haplessness in football is a mystery to me, though knocking off Miami last year was almost as exciting as taking the basketball title (and waaaay more surprising).
'91 UNLV-Duke semifinal
I'd never been so conflicted about a sports match-up as that. I just couldn't come up with a scenario where both teams would lose.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 1:04 PM
Boy, has this thread degenerate.
DeLong was absolutely right about Auerbach, BTW.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 1:24 PM
"Boy, this thread done degenerated".
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 1:25 PM
L., you have a sibling at Harvard?
Ah, now we know what the "L" stands for.
No, my siblings are all younger (and I'm obviously my mama's favorite, anyway). The case I had in mind was George W. Bush. He went to Yale, Neil went to Tulane; does anyone doubt that Mrs. Bush loves George best? "Better with the ladies" assertion also based on conjecture and not meant in any way as comment on my personal life, thankyouverymuch.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 2:01 PM
The L stands for "Ladies Love"
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 08- 9-05 2:08 PM