Underwater Basket Weaving(1958)

[David Bowie]

From:    "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>

<snip>

: I've heard "basket weaving" (unmodified) as an "undemanding course
: archetype" since the 1960's myself. There are -- I assume -- many real
: college courses in basket weaving (as an art or craft). Augmented
: expressions such as "underwater basket-weaving", "Serbo-Croatian
: basket-weaving", etc. make the humor transparent, with the longer
: names also denoting "specialized" forms of basket-weaving with the
: implication that the 'jock' or other (academically) incompetent (or
: lazy) student can make a whole academic career out of such
: 'specializations'.

Growing up (in Maryland in the 1970s/1980s), courses in Underwater Basket
Weaving were always attributed to universities in California. When one was
named, it was (as i recall) either UCLA or Berkeley.

: I believe there is also the understanding that an expertise in such an
: activity would be worthless in the employment market after graduation.

I actually heard a variant of it once (in high school, mid- to late 1980s)
where someone said people joke about courses in Underwater Basket Weaving,
but it's called that 'cause you ahve to keep the basket-making materials
under water so that they remain flexible enough to weave--so, therefore, a
course in Underwater Basket Weaving isn't as bogus as the name makes it
sound.

I never really looked into it--is this yet another case of the debunking of
an urban myth being an urban myth itself?

<quick searches at snopes.com>

Nothing on this seems to be in the snopes.com archives.

<snip>

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.