The term sophomore is easy. It is the year after freshman year in high school and college in the 4 year system.
- Freshmen
- Sophomore
- Junior
- Senior
We have standard 4 year high school and college curriculums so the same names are used.
Thanks for the information!
As far as I know, people in Canadian high schools are in 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th grade. In university, I’m pretty sure they refer to being in ther first or second year, etc. I do know that whenever I asked somebody what a sophomore was, I got an answer like, “I dunno. It’s an American thing.”
Sophomoric =/= Soporific
No, we’re pretty plain that way: Grade 9 (or in some circles, Grade IX), Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12. And for those of us from Ontario and of a certain age, Grade 13.
In university (colleges are not universities here in Canada), it’s first year, second year, third year, fourth year.
Like I said, pretty plain.
I’ve been to something very similar. It was in a Sports Complex and was wall to wall filled with Guns, Knives, and Collectibles. A couple of my friends and I were into Historical Muzzleloading (More the craft and art rather than hunting). We had made some kit guns and were looking for interesting old guns and Kentucky rifle kits and parts we couldn’t get elsewhere. For some reason it didn’t seem all that strange, except for those guys in the corner wearing full camo, selling assault rifles and gold coins, and advertising their survivalist school and compound in Washington state.
Regarding the word “sophomore,” legend has it that Plato used to call his second year students at the Academy “wise fools,” the implication being that they’d studied with him just long enough to THINK they were a lot smarter than they really are.
“Sophomore” is, essentially, Greek for “wise fool.”
On the other hand, as a northerner, I’ve repeatedly tried to explain to southern waitresses that “unsweetened” means “do not put any sugar in at all” not “do not add any additional sugar above and beyond the ridiculous amount you would normally use”.
Because jokes are made up by New Yorkers. And New Yorkers look over the border and see upper New Jersey, the bit that’s mostly indusrtial waste. Not the best bit of real estate. But not all there is to New Jersey. Hey, we have the largest percentage of wildland of any state (Pine Barrens).
We just have too many cars.
I don’t think saying “you’re welcome” or “my pleasure” would be at all out of place in this kind of situation in the UK.
Another thing I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread - maybe I just overlooked it - American cars (including the . I have no idea what a Saturn looks like - and it’s pretty much the same with most other references to car names (with a few exceptions like the Chrysler PT Cruiser and classic designs like the Corvette, that turn up in movies)
The whole “University as a major life experience thing” confuses me- here, University is, by and large, something people do part time while they’re working at another job to pay for it. It’s more like a continuation of High School than anything else.
Also, the whole “America is the greatest country on Earth, BUT YOU CAN’T COME AND LIVE HERE!” situation really annoys me. You’ve got a great country, that’s fine- but when you bombard the entire world with TV shows and movies about how great the US is, it’s not really fair to then turn around and tell people they’ve got no chance of getting to live The American Dream that your propaganda… er, popular culture, has promised them.
Anything Saturday Night Live related goes sailing over my head, since it isn’t on Free-To-Air TV here, and never has been AFAIK.
Ditto anything related to US Politics- I neither know nor care who all these obscure senators and local members of the House Of Representatives, Waffles, And Pancakes are, and nor do I understand why anyone should care about their proposed Amendment To The Anti-Puppy Kicking Bill which would also ban the Administering of Wedgies to any person wearing glasses.
On a related note, what’s with the sneaking unrelated laws into legislation? Such as passing laws about bars not being allowed to open before 9am in legislation relating to funding arts programmes in schools, for example. Seems kinda… odd, at least to me.
To be honest, I don’t understand all the political occurances in the US, and I live here. I think that the second part is somewhat explainable though (about unrelated laws).
To use your example, many people might feel that funding for arts programs is extremely important, and not that big of cost when considering the benefits. If you (as a senator or rep. or whatever) are strongly against the funding, but see you might not have a chance at winning, you can attempt to add a rider on about something unrelated. This unrelated law could be something people don’t like - to use your example again, we will assume that the representatives like to go out drinking at 8 am. They wouldn’t vote to close the bars, so they don’t vote to fund art programs. It seems to me that this tactic only prolongs the time before a legislation is made, but I could be wrong. I’m sure someone more educated will come along soon and tell you why I am wrong… 
Brendon
Thing is, Brendon, in many countries that wouldn’t work, period. Laws have to be “internally consistant”. You can not have a “law/reglament/whatever regulating breastfeeding in public and income tax”: they’d have to be two separate laws, voted separatedly.
So to many of us it’s one of those things that sound completely alien.
Sneaking unrelated laws into legislation is known as “attaching a rider”. The “rider” is that piece of legislation that has some interesting, and usually intended, consequences. One use for such things is to sneak pork-barrel projects into a bill. A recent example of that is the “bridge to nowhere”. Other ways riders are used are relegating “damage”. For example, if there’s a big minimum wage increase that’s proposed
(you can’t raise minimum wage! that’ll put business into bankruptcy! people will get laid off because of the increased costs! vs. the working poor need the extra money to survive! we haven’t had a federal minimum wage increase in 7 years! the cost of living keeps going up and wages are the same!)
The usual song-and-dance routine goes: bill to increase minimum wage with a rider attached that sharply cuts business taxes. That way, they’re brought back up during election cycles. Then the opponents can say “Look! He/She didn’t even VOTE for his party’s minimum wage bill and you want THAT person as your next (insert political office here)?” When in reality, the cost of passing that bill is strongly mitigated/nullified/made ethically repugnant to that candidate.
We Americans, being an island nation that, historically, dominates its island in many ways, shapes, and forms, are full of ourselves. We don’t have any major contrast of cultures between us and Canada, although we do with Mexico, but Mexico has many racial and social connotations that I won’t EVEN go into because people choose to ignore the history and different culture of Mexico. Europeans, for example, have different countries where we’d have different states. That mingling of languages and cultures seems to make for (stereotype alert!) more diverse and tolerant societies. We say we’re the best country on the face of the planet because we believe our own press and we (usually) don’t travel anywhere else.
And presumably there is some legal authority that sets that rule. The matter is pretty simple. The constitution gives legislative power to the Congress over certain subjects, but other than that does not set any limits on how that legislation must be written or organized. So they do what they want. That’s their constitutional power.
By the way, I want the record to show that I am AGAINST kicking puppies.
My name is Trevor, and I endorse this message.*
*a disclaimer that political candidates MUST have now to show that their ads are represented by themselves and not a special interest group or another group that has NO problem slandering the other candidate. then that other slanderous group can say they aren’t affiliated with the other candidate and vice versa.
The messed up part too is that then their opponents can use someone’s voting record against them in the next election: Candidate X voted against women and children by voting No on such-and-such. On the face it looks bad but he may have been voting against it because of some other rider he didn’t agree with.
Are you trying to say there should be no limits on immigration? It’s not like the borders are closed. Many people come here legally to work, go to school etc. Does your country allow anyone to come and live there with no limits?
Law schools…
I mean, there isn’t a law saying that laws have to be internally consistant. It’s one of those principles that get so ingrained in lawyers that, by the time they graduate and become lawmakers, judges, etc., trying to entertain the opposite notion could lead to exploding brains.
We’ve passed some completely ridiculous laws, mind you. But according to my law-school-graduate friend (he refuses to be called a lawyer), that law giving chimpanzee fetuses more right to live than human fetuses is, while completely stupid, “according to form”.
There certainly are colleges without fraternities, sororities, or any intercollegiate (i.e., against other colleges) sports. The college where I went as an undergraduate is one such place. And it was very important to most students there that it didn’t have them. I suspect that if it started any intercollegiate sports or allowed any fraternities or sororities to open, most alumni would disassociate themselves from the college.