Distinction
Over at the Guardian Blog, Daniel looks to see what percentage of the 300 “Comment is Free” contributors mentioned in their profile that they went to university, and of those what percentage went to Oxford or Cambridge. Answer: 20 percent mentioned a university, and 85 percent of the time it was Oxford or Cambridge. This reminds me of a line, which you still sometimes see in obituaries or profiles, that goes something like, “Educated at Eton and Oxford, he then [or “also”] attended Harvard.” There’s also that episode of Inspector Morse where the Chancellor, played by John Gielgud, is asked by some toady how many honorary degrees he has. “Oh, fifteen,” he says blandly, “Sixteen, if you count Yale.”