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Thread: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

  1. #1
    Stegodon
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    Mar 2009
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    Italy
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    Default Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    I was asked this by a friend the other day and couldn't answer. Here in Italy there is no tradition for wearing mortarboards at a graduation, she wondered if it was just an English/American thing and how the tradition came about. Anyone out there care to fill me in?

    And yes, I know I can google it, but where's the fun in that? Talk to me...
    "We don't need to all lose glitter privileges because one kid makes a sparkly penis on the carpeting." - Excalibur

  2. #2
    Stegodon
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    Mar 2009
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    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    They're a throwback to what learned men wore in the 16th century. As to why learned men in the 16th century wore those funny hats -- well, it was the fashion at the time. It's a signal that you have the money and the knowledge to wear a stupid hat, really.

    I believe the tradition held on in English colleges/universities, and Americans followed suit.

  3. #3
    Elephant
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    Feb 2009
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    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    Much of academic regalia is traditional and a carryover from English academic traditions. I have a copy of Imponderables upstairs that has a section on that, and later today, I'll post relevant quotes.
    There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. -- Ray Bradbury's "Coda"

  4. #4
    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    It's half a biretta - that funny cap worn by Catholic clergy. Both shared a common haberdashery ancestor when priests/teachers were the same thing and the teachers would wear their whole regalia - the graduation getup - whenever they were teaching. (Which I personally think looked awesome and wonderfully professional and think we should go back to it, but I'm still pouting that I'll never get to wear nurse's whites or a little white cap, so what do I know, right?) Anyhow, it's a completely traditionalist habit, so to speak, with no great significance other than that your teacher got one at graduation and her teacher got one at graduation and his teacher got one at graduation and so on.

    http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibiti ... 2eng.shtml
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

  5. #5
    Member
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    Apr 2009
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    90

    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    I think its so you can identify the blockheads!

  6. #6
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Santa Fe, NM
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    259

    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    I think it's pretty cool at the college I went to that the Civil and Chemical engineer graduates wore hard hats with a tassle.

  7. #7
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Mar 2009
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    179

    Default Re: Why are Mortarboards worn at graduations?

    Wow! I think that might have been enough for me to contemplate a non-liberal arts major.

    I'm not sure what English majors would wear rather than mortarboards. A big damn book with a groove worn it from where we'd repeatedly banged our heads against it? It would have to be by James Joyce.

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