Underwater basket weaving
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Look up underwater basket weaving in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Underwater basket weaving is an idiom referring in a negative way to supposedly easy and/or worthless college or university courses, and used generally to refer to a perceived decline in educational standards.[1] The term is also used to humorously refer to any non-academic elective course, specifically one that does not count towards any graduation requirements.
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[edit] Origin of the term
The phrase in its pejorative sense has been used since at least the mid-1950s. In a letter to the editor of the LA Times in 1956, a correspondent bemoaned a decline in College Pro Football and mentioned "majoring in underwater basket weaving, or the preparation and serving of smorgasbord, or, particularly at Berkeley, the combined course of anatomy and panty-raiding".[2] The following year, an article in the National Review mentioned that "the bored students in the educationists' courses call those dreary subjects 'underwater basket-weaving courses'",[3] and another year on a newspaper column noted that "One seaside university is bowing to the stern educational demands of the times by eliminating its popular course in underwater basket weaving".[4] An article in the Daily Collegian at Penn State University in 1961 refers to a parody in which "a 'typical' Miami coed majoring in underwater basketweaving was interviewed".[5] An article from 1976 refers to football players so dumb that they had to take underwater basket weaving,[6] and another article from that year refers to underwater basket-weaving as "an old old family joke".[7]
[edit] Notable uses
Some of the boys she knew from college were trying to dodge the draft by taking graduate courses, "underwater basketweaving and things like that," as Vonda contemptuously put it.—Rick Atkinson, The Long Gray Line
The phrase was used during the Vietnam War era to describe the sort of major that many young men who would otherwise not have entered college undertook to escape the draft.[8] US Senator Allott referred in 1968 to "the situation that we were in after World War II where we had universities setting up courses in underwater basketweaving, and all this sort of thing".[9] Senator Robert Byrd used the phrase in 1969 when questioning the use of funds to offer professional training to Cuban refugees.[10] The University of Portsmouth, UK, has a joke syllabus for underwater basket weaving on the Technology faculty pages,[11] and another joke syllabus proposal was posted by a University of Central Arkansas student magazine.[12]
[edit] As a taught course
Since 1980, Reed College in Portland, Oregon has offered an underwater basket weaving class during Paideia, its festival of learning that offers informal, non-credit courses.[13]
The Student Resource Center at the University of Arizona offered a submerged snorkeling basket-weaving course in Spring 1998.[14][15] In early 2009, a Rutgers University scuba diving instructor offered a one-off course.[16][17] Underwater Basket Weaving is a trademark of the US Scuba Center Inc.,[18] which offers a specialty class designed to improve or more fully enjoy diving skills from which participants can "take home a memorable souvenir".[19]
[edit] References
- ^ Tuckett, Alan: Underwater basket weaving. The Guardian, 13 May 2003
- ^ JUNIUS, South Pasadena College Pro Football Hit. Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1956
- ^ Russell Kirk: A Stranglehold on Education. National Review 1957
- ^ Fletcher Knebel: 'Potomac Fever' column. Appleton Post Crescent, May 14, 1958
- ^ Rabe, Diane. Sunshine Scholars Mimed at Pep Rally. Daily Collegian. Sep 28, 1961
- ^ Black, Darrell. Brawn, and brainRome News-Tribune, Jan 21, 1976, Rome, Georgia
- ^ Hazel Geissler. Prints Framed, Draperies Hung Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, Florida, March 16, 1976
- ^ Rick Atkinson: The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966. Published by Henry Holt and Co., 1999. ISBN 0805062912, 9780805062915. 608 pages
- ^ Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. United States Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Published by U.S. G.P.O., 1968
- ^ Second Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1969 United States Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations
- ^ http://techfaculty.port.ac.uk/tud//db/UnivPort/level_3/1SSHLS3UBW.htm
- ^ Shinnie, Ferri: New degree to be offered The Vino 2003 Volume 21 - Issue 4
- ^ Reed Orientation August 22–September 1, 2008
- ^ Michelle J. Jones: Build your own basket... underwater Arizona Daily Wildcat, November 24, 1997
- ^ Watery Weaving 101 - Frustration turns pupil into basket case. Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1998
- ^ Sacharow, Fredda: Recession buster: A Rutgers course for $1 Focus, February 4, 2009
- ^ Underwater Basket Weaving, Dollar Menu, Rutgers Recreation
- ^ United States Patent and Trademark Office Serial No. 75217070
- ^ US Scuba Center Inc.: Specialty Classes
