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I think the idea is that the degree belongs to the person who earned it, therefore it is a bachelor's degree, etc. because the person who currently owns it is a bachelor. The rifle would be treated similarly if the person who acquired it and now owns it is a sniper. If it was acquired for a collection or some other purpose, perhaps sniper rifle would be more appropriate. I would be quicker to criticize the terminology of martial arts except that I personally believe that either terminology would be correct.
I think you're taking the "possessiveness" of the possessive form too narrowly. When you earn a bachelor's or master's degree you are not taking it away from anyone, it's yours. You become the bachelor or master who holds it, so it's your master's degree, the degree of a master. A sniper's rifle is one designed for a sniper. Not necessarily a particular sniper, any old one will do. If a shirt is designed for a woman we don't call it a woman shirt, it's a woman's shirt, whether or not a woman owns it.
The conventions of martial arts may very well be different from academic usages, so if you receive a master black belt it doesn't mean that it's wrong to receive a master's degree. Language and traditions vary.
Edit: Hi, Dick, you nosed me out!
Interesting question. If we're thinking of the genitive as denoting possession, the ending is on the wrong word. We say John has a doctor's degree, but in fact the degree belongs to John. It is John's degree. John didn't borrow it from some unnamed doctor who really owns it!
The phrase must come from a loose adjectival sense of the genitive, not a possessive sense. John has a degree typical OF a doctor or a degree expected OF a doctor.
Dick said
A Baccalaureate is a degree. Bachelor's degree is another way of saying Baccalaureate.
If you have a B.A., you have a Baccalaureate.
If you have a Ph.D., you have a Doctorate.
But if you have an M.A., do you have a Magistrate?
(I don't even want to think about two-year degrees, like A.A.)
Ron Draney said
If you have a B.A., you have a Baccalaureate.
If you have a Ph.D., you have a Doctorate.
But if you have an M.A., do you have a Magistrate?
(I don't even want to think about two-year degrees, like A.A.)
I'm not sure, Ron, are you confirming what I said? I only ask because I'm not 100% sure and I appreciate both confirmation and correction.
Dick said
deaconB said
what you have is a Baccalaureate degree.I believe "Baccalaureate degree" is redundant. A Baccalaureate is a degree. Bachelor's degree is another way of saying Baccalaureate.
Hmmm. Many preachers would argue that a sermon directed at new graduates is a Baccalaureate - and so is the service at which the sermon is delivered. And a Baccalaure is also a battery of tests taken to gain admission to many universities around the world.
There are many kinds if baccalaureate degrees, The University of Dayton offers a BChE, a Bacholor of Chemical Engineering as opposed to the more common BSChE, which they contend is a sctence degree, not an engineering one. There are Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts programs, and probably Bachelor of Applied Arts and Bachelor of Technology programs.
Is there actually such thing as a Bachelor's Degree? I've never seen a diploma that simply said “Bachelor†without qualofication.
I wasn't really agreeing or disagreeing earlier, but since you ask, I don't agree that "Baccalaureate degree" is redundant. While the first few online dictionaries I checked claim "baccalaureate" is a noun, it feels more like an adjective to me because it also occurs in phrases like "baccalaureate studies", "baccalaureate program", "baccalaureate ceremony", etc. "Doctorate" appears to partake in all of these constructions as well as others.
I'm willing to concede that these words may technically be nouns, but in practice they seem to be used attributively more often than not.
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