Talk:school class

I believe usage varies as to whether a person who was due to graduate in a given year but didn't remains part of the class, particularly if that person graduates in a different year. Need to clarify. -dmh 02:50, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The example doesn't illustrate the expression. Isn't it simply "class", as in "class of '84"? — Paul G 09:24, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is this better? The term is fairly rare. From what I can tell, it's usually used to disambiguate between a class in the sense of "all the students in this classroom" and the sense given. The new example is awkward, but tries to say this. -dmh 11:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've never heard the phrase "school class" - or if I have it would've been in a circumlocution or somesuch. It's not an idiom or set phrase as far as I know. — Hippietrail 12:04, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'll mark it as US, where it is widely (universally?) understood to have the disambiguating function I noted above. It's somewhat rare, because the exact sense of class is usually clear from context, but it is definitely used. Google "in my school class" for example.

I tend to leave entries unmarked, as I don't always know whether a usage is regional, and if so, how regional. However, I try very hard not to put in unattested senses, and I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt: "I haven't heard this, is it a US usage?" sounds much better than "this doesn't belong here." -dmh 12:32, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, my messages are designed for brevity due to lots of edits crammed into stolen minutes or seconds. It still sounds more like a noun with a qualifier than a set phrase to me but I'm certainly not going to delete it. Are there also terms such as "high school class", "junior high class", "college class" etc? Would you consider those all also set phrases which belong in a dictionary? — Hippietrail 12:39, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No problem. I've probably been a bit sharp lately, for similar reasons. High school class is definitely used, college class less so, junior high class maybe not, but would probably be understood. The terms {freshman,sophomore,junior,senior} class are all quite well-known. Come to think of it, freshman class is also used to designate all senators or US representatives elected in the given year (but there is no corresponding use of junior or senior, and probably not of sophomore except perhaps for effect, similar to sophomore slump).

It's a good question whether these deserve separate entries. I tend to think yes, except probably college class and junior high class in the absence of attestation. Intuitively, I think these tend to be parsed as a unit (i.e., they're listemes) and are liable to take on lives of their own (e.g., the extension of freshman class to legislators). Also, it's probably significant that college class and junior class are not widely attested. This suggests (but definitely doesn't prove) that high school class is a listeme and not the result of a productive rule. -dmh 13:50, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)