"Wolfgang" wrote:

"Chas Wade" wrote in message
news:U4aWb.213809$Rc4.1722962@attbi_s54...
"Wolfgang" wrote:

At any rate, it's academic.....it ain't gonna happen.

That's a common enough phrase, it's academic, and your definition is
what we usually are thinking when we use it. Ever wonder what that
says about academia?

Nope, not before now.

I don't intend to insult anyone with that comment, it's just that I
like expressions and enjoy digging at their roots.

Just off the top of my head, it seems to me that it's simply an
abbreviated form of "an academic exercise". The outcome of the
exercise, it is assumed, will have no bearing on events in the real
world. Apart from the implicit suggestion that this is the sort of
thing that goes on there, I don't believe it says much about academia.
Some people will doubtless infer that is ALL that goes on there but
the inference isn't supported by anything in the expression.

Did you have something else in mind?

Wolfgang

No, that's it. Just a bit of harmless, probably barbless, fun.

Chas
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