> Paul,

   If we can "finish high school" I guess we ought to be able to graduate it.
   I think we can confuse logic with what sounds right. And if it sounds
right, then we look for logical explanations.
   I like the way the talk has tended. We don't need to legislate as much
as we itch to. Even though we like to think of ourselves as experts and
sources of good advice (with good cause), we need to be careful
observers from time to time.
   The language does have a life of its own.

Craig
Dick,
>
> I guess that when I said 'illogical', I was thinking in terms of the
> transitive/intransitive issue. It seemed illogical to me that a person
> could cause a high school to graduate.  Of course if 'graduate' becomes a
> transitive verb through common usage, I suppose there might be some logic
> there, but it still seems odd to me (and I admit that this is a learned
> attitude) that an inanimate object could be the direct object of this
> verb.
>
> It occurs to me that the usage, if it becomes (has become?) standard, is
> merely eliptical, dropping the "understood" prepositon. Is that possible?
>
> Paul
>
> P.S. Yes I've known lots things that (and people who) don't know from
> logical! So it goes.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "Veit, Richard" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 8:33:21 PM
> Subject: Re: usage question
>
>
> Paul,
>
> In some U.S. dialects, people “graduate from high school.”  In others,
> they “graduate high school.” As linguists we can observe which dialects
> use which expression, and we can observe which is more widely used. If one
> usage is particularly widespread compared to the other, we might call it
> “standard,” but we can’t say that either usage is “illogical” or “wrong.”
>
> As some of our fellow native New Yorkers might say, language doesn’t know
> from logical.
>
> Cheers.
>
> Dick Veit
>
> ________________________
>
> Richard Veit
> Department of English, UNCW
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
> Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 8:04 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: usage question
>
> I grew up in NYC, where just about everyone dropped the 'from' in
> 'graduate from'. I had to learn the usage in school before I realized it
> was not possible (or illogical) for anyone to "graduate high school."
> Paul D.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: dabro <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 2:53:00 PM
> Subject: Re: usage question
> Thank you Edmond for setting me straight . I've always thought that
> "graduate college" was British usage and "graduate from" American. It's
> only lately that I've been hearing "graduate high school" in American
> English. As you correctly note, "graduate" is an IV. That's why Larry is
> uncomfortable trying to form a passive sentence with it.
>
> David Brown
> ESL/EFL teacher
> Long Beach, CA
> USA
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On Sat 12/16, Edmond Wright < [log in to unmask] > wrote:
> From: Edmond Wright [mailto: [log in to unmask]]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:40:03 +0000
> Subject: Re: usage question
>
>>
> Geoff,
>
> As an Englishman I judge that we English would never say 'graduate high
> school', (1) for 'to graduate' is an intransitive verb in English English,
> and (2) it is only used of graduating from the UNIVERSITY. We do not call
> gaining one's 'GCSE' (General Certificate of Education -- at 16) or
> 'A-Level' (Advanced level GCSE -- at 18) 'graduating' at all. Most
> secondary schools (only a minority of which are called 'high schools')
> hold
> what is called a 'Speech Day' later the following year, a day on which a
> visiting dignitary formally presents the GCSE and A-Level certificates and
> any school prizes that are offered to the students of these two different
> ages, who have left school at different times. Thus Speech Days have never
> been referred to as performing 'graduation'.
>
> Edmond
>
>
> Dr. Edmond Wright
> 3 Boathouse Court
> Trafalgar Road
> Cambridge
> CB4 1DU
> England
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33
> Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
>
> T! o join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
> Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com To join or leave
> this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
> the list"
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or
> leave the list"
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV
> list, please visit the list's web interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
> the list"
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
>      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/