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A Giggle Of Junior-High Girls
...a giggle of junior-high girls practicing cheerleading moves
Is this any less Shakespearian than "a sea of troubles" (hint: see Hamlet's soliloquy)?
Another classic affinitive term, from Lileks.
And note, he doesn't say the atrocious and absurd adjective, "middle-school."
Posted by Rand Simberg at March 02, 2003 09:55 PM
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Comments
Yeah. I can't stand that term "middle school." When _I_ went to school it was "junior high," not "middle school." What's next, calling high school "next school" so there won't be any feeling of hierarchy? Bleah.
Posted by Andrea Harris at March 2, 2003 10:21 PM
I have a hunch I'm older than Andrea (I'm 40), and when I went to school, it was called a "middle school". **g**
But I agree, "junior high" probably conveys the image better as an adjective.
Posted by Sandra at March 3, 2003 12:14 AM
It might be a regional thing. I never heard of a "middle school" until I came to California in the early eighties, but since then, the infection seems to have spread to back east.
Posted by Rand Simberg at March 3, 2003 08:45 AM
I got promoted out of junior-high the very year my school was torn down and replaced with a middle school. Timing is everything.
Posted by Kevin McGehee at March 3, 2003 09:50 AM
It was middle school (grades 5-8) the entire time I was a Sanitation Engineer Jr. growing up in Ohio in the 70s and 80s. There was even a separate school building with the words "Middle School" emblazoned on it, originally written in '60s-style spaceagey aluminum raised letters and subsequently replaced with '80s-style blobbofont fake gold letters.
I didn't know there was a dislike for the term, as I hadn't even considered there was an alternative--I'd never heard of "junior high" before. Guess I don't get out much or something... well, that and I have little reason to be hanging out with middle school (er, sorry, "junior high") folks.
A rose, by any other name... stinks just as bad. ;-)
Posted by Sanitation Engineer #6 at March 3, 2003 12:02 PM
A junior high tends to include grades 7 to 9, whereas a middle school includes grades 6 to 8, or sometimes 5 to 8. Junior high dates to 1909, middle school to 1945.
It partly has to do with pedagogical fads. My school changed from a 7 to 9 junior high to a 6 to 8 middle school as I entered 7th grade. This would be 1992, in Durham, NC.
Oddly enough, the Japanese term is and has been chuugakkou (中学校), literally "middle school," despite the middle schools there being grades 7 to 9.
Posted by John Thacker at March 3, 2003 12:06 PM
Sanitation Engineer #6, apropos of nothing in particular, I have to ask. What happened to Sanitation Engineers #1-#5?
Posted by Rand Simberg at March 3, 2003 02:17 PM
Bet it has something to do with alligators.
Posted by Kevin McGehee at March 3, 2003 03:33 PM
Who are you?
The new number two.
Who is number one?
You are. Number six.
Posted by Sanitation Engineer #6 at March 5, 2003 11:56 AM
I AM NOT A NUMBER!
We want iiiinformaationnnnn...
You won't get it!
Posted by Matthew Picioccio #2 at March 5, 2003 12:24 PM
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