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"Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out
by bernardom 11y ago
"Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out."
...except for her actual undergrad degree, which is from Cornell.
(Hey, when you don't have presidents, you take what you can get. And we'll take RBG over several presidents.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tanderson92 11y agoAn earned undergraduate degree is not an 'honorary degree'.
- coldtea 11y agoNo, but it's a "degree", and she has that university covered too, degree-wise, which is what he means.
- deong 11y agoBut the quote explicitly says "honorary degree". She doesn't have an honorary degree from Cornell.
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoIf a sentence can be interpreted in two different ways, and it's clear from context which one the speaker meant, it's considered polite to choose that one.
- knodi123 11y agoAlso called the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
- coldtea 11y agoThis is equivalent to saying "does not compute". We're not computers, and we can't fix syntax errors in natural language from context. Not that what he said wasn't clear enough itself.
- CocaKoala 11y agoBefore we start sassing somebody for interpreting a sentence improperly, let's look at the ACTUAL full quote; "Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary doctorate degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out." It doesn't seem unreasonable to point out that an earned undergraduate degree is significantly different from an honorary doctorate degree, and that perhaps when somebody EXPLICITLY SPECIFIES the second type, they aren't talking about the first. That's not a syntax error, and it's plenty clear.
- coldtea 11y ago>It doesn't seem unreasonable to point out that an earned undergraduate degree is significantly different from an honorary doctorate degree, and that perhaps when somebody EXPLICITLY SPECIFIES the second type, they aren't talking about the first. It's very unreasonable, and kind of rude to divert the discussion just to split hairs. Not to mention that there wasn't even a syntactic or logical error in the original bloody statement. The full original quote plus parent comment was this: >Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out." ...except for her actual undergrad degree, which is from Cornell. Clearly mentioning that her "undergrad degree" is an ACTUAL one, and not a "honorary". Very clearly he adds to the information that "she has a honorary degree from every single Ivy League school except Conrell" that she also has "an actual udergrad degree, which is from Cornell". It's CLEAR that his intention is to say that she has a degree, regardless of kind, from ALL Ivy League schools, and to also explain why she doesn't have one from Cornell (because Cornell doesn't need to give her a honorary one, they gave her their actual degree).
- CocaKoala 11y ago
- tanderson92 11y agoThe parent uses the words "...except", indicating they take exception to the quote directly above. In this instance, adding information about earned undergraduate degrees is misleading as the quote is only about honorary degrees. It's equally as irrelevant as her earned Columbia law degree. Nobody would object to the OP saying "funnily enough, she does have an earned degree from Cornell...", which is my point. Taking exception requires something to be factually incorrect.
- huxley 11y agoI imagine an honorary undergraduate degree would also be a bit of a rarity.