E for Effort (1940)

[George Thompson]

I suspect that "E for Effort" is used in scholls that use an ABCDF scale.  There is no E grade, so work that isn't good gets a sarcastic or sympathetic E for effort.  Teachers in schools that Use E for Excellent, S for Satisfatory, P for Poor, &c, would find E for Effort misunderstood.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2004 11:20 am
Subject: Re: E for Effort (1940)

> Oops! I forgot to state that, in my experience, "E for effort" was
> onlya sarcastic saying by teachers ("Well, I guess I can give you
> E for
> effort," said with a sneer) and not an actual grade. All actual grades
> were, in my experience, numerical - 100, 99, 98, 97, ... 0 - through
> high school (graduated May 8, 1954, in Saint Louis). Only at the
> college level were letter grades, A, B, C, D, F (with "+" or "-" added
> when relevant) used. These letter grades each had a numerical value,
> but it was not fixed, in those days. The values could be 5, 4, 3,
> 2, 1
> or 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, varying by institution, before the latter version
> become standard across the country.
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
> On May 4, 2004, at 10:33 AM, Barbara Need wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Barbara Need <nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: E for Effort (1940)
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> > --------
> >
> > When I was first getting letter grades (1960s, near Cleveland), it
> > was A, B, C, D, and F. Early in the 70s (now north of Boston), they
> > changed the grading system and E stood for Excellent. Even
> though I
> > had not experienced a grading system where E was the worst
> grade, I
> > found it less than informative.
> >
> > Barbara Need
> > UChicago--Linguistics
> >
> >> How old are you? I'm nearly 70 and it's "E for effort" that I
> recall>> from my elementary-school years in the early '40's. "A
> for effort"
> >> feels like a hypercorrection, as you imply when you say that
> "'A' is
> >> easier to understand."
> >>
> >> -Wilson Gray
> >>
> >> On May 3, 2004, at 11:17 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Thank you for this interesting history, Barry.
> >>>
> >>> I've heard that version, but I more commonly hear, and I use
> "A for
> >>> effort". When I hear "E", I always wonder if it's a failing
> grade, so
> >>> the
> >>> "A" is easier to understand.
> >>>
> >>> Benjamin Barrett
> >>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]
> >>>>
> >>>> E FOR EFFORT--3,270 Google hits, 2,120 Google Groups hits
> >>>>
> >>>>  Who grades with this letter?
> >>>>  Not in OED, HDAS, CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG?
> >>>>  Was this coined by Bing Crosby in ROAD TO SINGAPORE?
> >
>