Harvard of the South (HotS); Harvard on the Hocking; Harvard on the Highway...

[Wilson Gray]

Back in the 'Fifties, I heard "Harvard of the South": Vanderbilt or
Tulane; "Harvard of the Midwest": Washington University of Saint Louis
or University of Chicago; "Harvard of the Army": the U.S. Army
Security Agency plus the U.S. Army Language School (in those days,
members of the A.S.A., who filled 99.44% of the slots for EM, were the
only *enlisted* personnel *guaranteed* a chance to attend the A.L.S.
Officers may have had some other saying re "Harvard ...")

-Wilson

On 3/4/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Harvard of the South (HotS); Harvard on the Hocking; Harvard
>               on the Highway...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:48 PM -0500 3/4/07, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> >On 3/4/07, Susan Burt <smburt at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>I spent a year at McGill and had no idea it was called the
> >>"Harvard-on-the-St.Lawrence."
> >
> >New Jersey City University (known to locals by its old name, Jersey
> >City State) is affectionately nicknamed "Harvard on the Boulevard"
> >(i.e., Kennedy Boulevard).
> >
> >>On the other hand, once I spotted someone in a University of Chicago
> >>sweatshirt that was emblazoned with:
> >>
> >>"Harvard, the University of Chicago of the East."
> >
> >I believe Stanford uses the same line.
> >
> When I left the University of Wisconsin for Yale, I was given a
> T-shirt at my going away party that read "Yale, the Wisconsin of the
> East."  This type always struck me as rather less effective for
> institutions like the University of Chicago or the University of
> Wisconsin--it works better for Stanford or even, say, Carleton or
> Reed, since it takes a while to process that the reference is to the
> college and not the state or the city.
>
> LH
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
                                         -Free-Wheeling Franklin

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