Cynthia Baird wrote:
A parent recently asked me a question for which I had no ready answer. 
The question is actually one that I have experienced much frustration over
for several years--my high school textbooks and usage textbooks seem to
have no ready answers for acceptable preposition usage in a variety of
situations.

The question is this:  Do students graduate from  high school or do they
graduate  high school?

COMMENTARY
In case you have not thought of trying this method, it is helpful to
Google these two alternatives and see what you come up with.  I tried the
past tense forms and came up with the following data:

"graduated from high school" gets more than 1.1 million hits
"graduate high school" gets more than 680,000 hits

We can see from this survey that the former is the more commonly used
form, but the substantial number of hits on "graduated high school"
demonstrates that it is also a widely accepted form.  I wonder why parents
or teachers feel there must be a "right" and a "wrong" version of this
phrase. Why does it have to be "either/or"?

Some examples for "graduate high school" come from what I would consider
educated writing of credible sources:

From the Mahattan Institute, a think-tank
"Students who fail to graduate high school prepared to attend a four-year
college are much less likely to gain full access to our country’s
economic, political, and social opportunities."
www.manhattan-institute.org

From the financial aid web page of Western Washington University (in
notices about Walmart scholarships)
“Applicant must have/will have graduated high school, home school or
have/will have obtained a GED certificate between August 1, 2006 and June
30, 2007.”

A whole series of bios from Access TECH webpage use this form. Most of the
bios on this page use the structure…except for a few that eliminate
“graduated high school “ and simply write “graduated from X high school.”

I grew up in Austin, Texas and I graduated high school from Austin High. I
received my Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies
and will be receiving my Master of Education in Higher Education in
December of 2004. I will then continue to complete my Doctorate in Higher
Education. I have worked for Texas Tech University since 2001 and have
worked with AccessTECH for one year.

From a web site on which aspiring writers can publish their work, this
headline appears

Submission Call: Authors Who Graduated High School in 1994
www.authorsden.com

On a PBS web page, filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is quoted as saying:
“I graduated high school in 1947 and I was interested to see what high
school was like in 1968.”

As an instructor and writing tutor for students whose second language is
English, I am all too aware of how difficult it is for these students to
select the appropriate preposition.  Indeed, there are few rules governing
prepositions.  Most of them have to be "picked up" through extensive
exposure to written and spoken English or memorization of lists of most
commonly used expressions (e.g. verb + prep. or adjective + prep.
combinations).

Since I am not writing from the office, I cannot consult my
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage on this particular
expression. MWDEU is a great resource that gives sensible advice based on
real language data (not the fancies of self-appointed guardians of
"correct Engish").  I understand a newer edition of this usage dictionary
has come out (entitled Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English
Usage).


R. Michael Medley, Ph.D., Director
Intensive English Program
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA 22802
[log in to unmask]  (540) 432-4051

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