You have failed to answer the question, “Why do they call it the Ivy League?”. There is no “obvious conclusion” from the article, nor is there even a vague reference to the ivy that grows on buildings. I found the identical article at Ask Jeeves in about thirty seconds. And while you are, in fact, correct, your logic is not. Please, in the future, try a little harder.
For the “Straight Dope” try this instead:
(from ASK YAHOO)
-Incidentally, according to a story on the Ivy League’s official web site ( http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/extras/local/history.html ), the “Ivy” part of Ivy League is a reference to the plants that climb all over many of the old campus buildings at each school. The term was inspired by a sarcastic comment from a sports writer assigned to cover a Columbia-Pennsylvania football game. When he received his assignment, he grumbled about “watching the ivy grow.” Another reporter overheard the comment and dubbed the prestigious group of schools “the Ivy League.”
Welcome to the SDMB and thank you for your comment. For a link to work, the URL has to have a space on either side of it, which I have supplied for you.
Gavin If I read your criticism correctly, you think the Ken didn’t mention that “ivy league” came from the ivy on the walls of the institutions? Is my assumption correct?
You said
. In the last paragraph of Ken’s article he says
You also said
Ken said, in his first sentence
in reply to the questioner asking if the name came from the ivy on the walls
If I have answered in haste and missed something, I apologize. If not, thanks for showing up.
My point was that there was no EXPLANATION to WHY it is called IVY League, thus not answering the original question: “Why do they call it Ivy League?”
If you read carefully you will notice that he correctly refutes the statement that Ivy comes from IV, the original four colleges (as there were only three). However, one cannot CONCLUDE from this that Ivy therefore comes from the Ivy on the walls. One must examine further.