habilitation

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:44 AM +0100 11/27/10, Paul Frank wrote:
>Though the OED does have an entry for "habilitation" and one of the
>meanings of it is "qualification" (with a quotation from 1868), it's
>surprising that there's no proper definition of the current and
>important meaning of the post-doctoral academic qualification known in
>many European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, as
>"habilitation." For an excellent explanation of this by now _English_
>word, see:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation
>
>The German word "Habilitation" is sometimes translated as "State
>doctorate,"

which also serves as a literal translation of the
more-or-less equivalent French hurdle in years
past, the thèse d'état.  (State thesis?)  I
understand they have changed this degree to
a...habilitation. (Just pronounced with a
different accent.)

LH

>sometimes as "postdoctoral lecture qualification," and
>sometimes as "post-doctoral thesis." But all of these are inadequate
>for various reasons. I frequently come across the word "habilitation"
>in English publications about continental Europe and I'm surprised
>that it's not in the OED.
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org