Where "down" is in New England.

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:14 PM -0400 8/9/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>At 8/9/2010 11:59 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>I forget whether one goes down from one's university to London or up
>>to London; could it be either, depending on the context and worldview?
>
>I think one can be "sent down" from one's college (and also prep [do
>the British use that term] school to home, for misbehavior.

I was evidently too cryptic.  I was starting from the premise that
one goes (or is sent) down from one's university to one's home (or
goes up to Oxford, Cambridge, etc., even if one is going north to
Newcastle, with or without coals) and that one goes up to London from
the provinces (again even from the North.  And this is consistent
with the rule mentioned in the OED gloss that the "higher" place from
which one descends or to which one ascends is more highly valued in
some relevant sense.  I just wondered which of these valuations took
precedence if the home is in London and the university isn't.

LH

>  I assume
>it ain't always London.  (What does "The Winslow Boy" say?  Although
>in that case it was a Royal Navy school.)
>

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