If you can't spell it, do you deserve the degree?

This is not the first time the Phytophactor has attempted to elucidate the nature of the BA and BS degrees for you. The B stands for baccalaureate after baccus laureus the fruit of the laurel (Laurus nobilis) and source of bay leaves. The Greeks awarded champions wreaths of laurel leaves, their crowning acheivement, and so having labored away in the vinyards of academe students obtain a baccalaureate degree to certify their achievement. In the early days of the academe it was only single males who earned such degrees so they became nicknamed bachelor's degrees, a sexist error that sadly even our great institute of higher learning perpetuates.
Now the Phactor is a tolerant person, but if you don't know the name of your degree, or you can't spell it, do you deserve that degree? Duh! The Phactor is the fellow who always took a potted bay laurel to graduation.
A similar question was put to me once, almost 35 years ago, and yes, the Phactor knew what PhD stood for. Now please understand that as part of a discussion of herbs and spices in my economic botany class, not only was this all explained, but the students were told that Phactor did not think anyone was deserving a degree who did not know its name and could not spell it. So how did my aspiring academics, mostly seniors, do?
5 did not answer the question at all; it was an option, but since they chose other questions it indicates they really did not know because some of the other answers they gave were pretty awful.
2 said Bachelor's although the error of this was part of the lecture.
The remaining 16 knew the answer, but only 3 could spell it correctly. Looks like only 13% pass my acid test.
Here are the 11 permutations (one turned up 3 times): baccalorate, bachalaureat, bacheloriate (an amusing fusion), bacclaureate, bachloretti (sort of sounds Italian), bacchalaurate (the favorite), bacculerote, bacalureate, baccaleurate, baccaloriate (nicely phonetic), bacchelaureatte.
Won't my dean and provost be amused?

That's PROFESSOR to you, fella!

This really rubs my rhubarb! This issue is nothing new, and it ranges from our local news rag to the ever dwindling giants of news publishing. The issue has surfaced because, unlike all previous vice presidential spouses, Mrs. Biden has a doctorate in education and teaches college courses. So here is my annoyance. Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific "Dr." unless the person in question has a medical degree.

I used to ask all of our PhD students what PhD stands for in the rather perverse perspective that you don’t deserve any degree if you don’t know what its honorific stands for. If you are a reasonably well educated person, you are undoubtedly aware that PhD stands for philosophiæ doctor, written in italics because it is Latin. Philosophy means lover of knowledge, and here’s the critical part, doctor means TEACHER!

MDs are physicians, a worthy and noble profession, but they are not teachers, and yet they are the only ones to merit the honorific doctor? Wow! Refusing to grant academics the honorific doctor because they don’t have a medical degree exposes the ignorance and attitudes of journalists whose 6.5 years of undergraduate study in communication or journalism at some state college clearly were not equal to their task. They probably still don’t know what the B in their own degree stands for even though the Phytophactor has tried to help.

The real reason for not calling people with PhDs doctors is the fundamental anti-intellectualism that permeates our society. You certainly don’t want to acknowledge that some egghead intellectual actually might know and understand some things better than a journalist or other member of the general public. The American public much prefers good old boy street smarts and common sense that gets itself mislead and hosed on such a regular basis that what we really, really need in this country is a remedial course in critical thinking for everybody.

The real meaning of Baccalaureate

As part of a totally bizarre rant about masonic conspiracy and the control of higher education by the occult elite, David Flynn demonstrates a level of scholarship and understanding that makes the rest of his conclusions more understandable. In other words he’s so wrong about these simple things that you can readily understand how he made a hash out of more complex issues.

“This accomplishment [completion of a bachelor’s degree] earns the student a Bacchus laurel, for this is really what “bachelor” means. Bacchus is the Roman version of Dionysus, Greek god of wine revelry and facades, lies, and drunkenness.”

Correcting this in reverse order the baccalaureate degree was nicknamed the “bachelor’s degree” because at that time virtually all university students were unmarried men, bachelors, and of course, many people still think the B in B.A. or B.S. stands for bachelor’s, but of course, b stands for baccalaureate, the fruit of the laurel. Some college catalogues even make this mistake, all the more shameful for a scholarly institution. It was the custom in ancient Greece to crown champions with wreaths of laurel leaves, the noble laurel, Laurus nobilis, which is also found in your cupboard as bay leaves. And this custom gave rise to titles such as poet laureate. So you receive a degree as the fruits of your academic labors, and the fruit of the laurel, unlike the fruit of the grape, has no connection Dionysus. But then this author was intent on taking something traditional and noble and casting it as tawdry, but in the process Flynn reveals himself to be either a poor scholar and/or one who deliberately misleads. Me, a member of the occult educational elite, I’m betting on the combination of the two.