Why do amercian call school grades like junior, senior, etc?

22 comments

1. As with many things, blame the English

   http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/04/origin-freshmen-sophomore-junior-senior/#:~:text=Since%20the%20mid%2D14th%20century,a%20%E2%80%9Cfourth%20year%20student.%E2%80%9D

2. I believe the terms actually originated at Oxford and Cambridge

3. We use numbers as well, 9th, 10th 11th, and 12th.

   The terms freshman, sophomore, junior and senior originate from Cambridge in the 1640s, we just never stopped using them.

4. I mean, it’s 4 words and they’re not really that long or hard to say. Anyone going to college should be able to pick up 4 words.

   I’m not saying one way is better than the other. We actually use both for high school. But like another poster said, we’ve used them for centuries and they’re not really detrimental so I see no reason to change.

5. “First year” is the same amount of syllables as “freshman”. I don’t think we pay much attention to whether the terms are understandable for non-Americans, but many people are familiar from American TV shows anyways.

6. How grades are numbered differs across the Anglo sphere. It’s not like we don’t use numerical designations.

   How we define school levels also differ, primary, secondary, college, university, etc.

   Freshman Senior and the other names you’ve mentioned are just an American designation that we’ve retained from our British roots.

   We’ve kept many things from our roots. Just sometimes different ones from the ones that y’all have kept from your British roots.

7. Wow, thanks for sharing your thoughts on why the way we do things is inferior to the Australian way. We will happily ignore your thoughts on this matter.

8. You don’t have any sayings in Australia that a foreigner wouldn’t understand?

   It’s just like those..

9. Wait until you hear that we use both

10. Why did you feel it necessary to justify the way you say it to us, and in so doing, imply that it’s superior to our custom? Would you do that on AskaRussian or AskAsia? Is this an Australian convention or a personal quirk?

11. 9th grade is boring. Freshman is fun.

    That’s basically it.

12. Yes it’s so much less efficient to say “seniors” than “twelfth graders” or “fourth year students” /s

13. >So much easier to understand

    hardly…

    What are the upper and lower bounds? Without that information, all you have is the sequential order which really doesn’t do too much without context anyways.

    I understand what you mean, but its not like average person (american) is concerned about having to explain something that’s rather trivial. I don’t mean that offensively either… it would be like saying our system is better than Japan. I doubt a Japanese person cares.

14. >Here in Australia, we just say grade and a number.

    We do that here too, for situations of miscommunication like this.

    >Same with university, 1st year, 2nd year, etc.

    Not everyone needs only four years to gain a baccalaureate degree.

    Why not take this to r/ameristralia to get both sides?

15. Blame it on the British.

16. They are all two syllable words, I never understand when people talk about “efficiency” in language over a syllable or two. That’s not how language works.

17. We do it just to annoy you. We are out to get you.

18. Y’all will complain about literally anything related to the US.

19. Just curious OP, when was the last time you were having a casual conversation with a fellow Australian and corrected them because whatever they said might not make sense to a foreigner. Do you frequently request that your fellow Australians stop using any terms or phrases that would be difficult for someone from Liechtenstein, El Salvador or Laos to understand?

20. Because we’re not Australian and we don’t care that you call it whatever it is you call it because we understand how things are done over here just fine.

    You understand yours and we understand ours.

21. I am not sure on the origin but yes, in both HS and College we use those terms.

    HS: 9th: Freshmen, 10th Sophomore, 11th Junior, 12th Senior.

    For college is based on credit hours.

22. Like so many things we get blamed for, that originated with the Brits. Our schools picked it up because they were brand new and trying to have an air of legitimacy by copying more established institutions and just…never stopped. I don’t remember if this particular one was Cambridge, Oxford or both but thats the general source.

    You can say year if you like, no one will be confused. They correlate to 9th-12th in high school and using the number isn’t uncommon even for Americans. College it would be weirder to number it but you could still say 1st-4th year and no one would be lost.