Ask Andi and Andy
Dear Andy/Andi,
I hear school graduations referred to as “commencements” or graduations”. Which is proper? Why the difference?
Confused In Cap & Gown
Dear Confused In Cap & Gown,
To summarize the popular definitions – a “graduation” is a “movement upward” and a “commencement” is a “beginning”. It would seem either reference would be appropriate.
Many view graduation as an ending – the end of high school and perhaps the end of an education.
Most 8th grade advancements into high schools, if recognized at all, are called “Promotions”. This is an easy way to draw a distinction between the ending of grammar school and the ending secondary
schooling. But, we digress from the question.
Depending upon your point of view, similar to “is the glass have empty or half full”, you may refer to movement out of the secondary level of education as a “graduation” or a “commencement”. You would be right it either case. The important thing is not what you call the ceremony, but what you do with your life after the ceremony.
A man much wiser that I once wrote:
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
By - William Ernest Henley
The important thing is what you do with your life after the ceremony is over.
by DeGrey