Enclosed in an email from Pat Fish:
From: Wordsmith
Date: January 21, 2008 9:02:24 PM PST
To: linguaphile@wordsmith.org
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--redbrick
This week's theme: words with color as metaphors.
redbrick (RED-brik) adjective
Lacking prestige.
[The term usually describes universities. A redbrick university is one built
in the UK after WWII, as opposed to the older prestigious institutions such
as Oxford and Cambridge. The term is mostly used in the UK. A contrasting
term in the US is Ivy League. An Ivy League university is one of several in
the northeastern US that have high prestige and a reputation for scholastic
achievement. The term alludes to the age of the universities reflected in
the ivy that festoons the outside walls of the buildings on campus.]
2 comments:
Actually, the Ivy league has nothing to do with Ivy on the buildings. It is actually a reference to the original group of schools (Princeton, Harvard, Cambridge and Rutgers I believe). There were 4 of them, ore as denoted in Roman numerals IV.
Dude! I saw this question on your profile: If mud is dirt plus water, what is clay?
Clay is BRICK!
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