Knorf
September 24, 2004, 5:08am
81
Since we’re indulging in some friendly English-major ribbing here: deer , octopi , and phenomena , just off the top of my head.
The top of your head has some mistaken notions, apparently. ‘Octopi’ is not properly speaking the plural of anything. It is at best “pseudo-Latin,” or what I like to call fake erudition. “Octupuses” is a perfectly acceptable plural form.
AmericanMaid:
I think the snobbery around majors basically comes from a person’s background. I majored in History because it interested me and I had this silly dream of working for the UN or state dept. A college aquaintance of mine, who’s the first generation of her family to attend college, picked her major based upon average salary. She ended up getting her Chem-E degree and used to endlessly bash us poor liberal arts idiots. If we complained about our salary, she’d ask us what did we expect with such a useless degree.
Right, and I think it mostly comes from insecurity. Why else would someone bother commenting about someone else’s degree or career plans?