Megan from East Hampton, New York, asks why an elementary school is sometimes called a grammar school when pupils study far more than grammar. The name reaches back to medieval church and monastery schools, or scolae grammaticales, where Latin grammar was the foundation for training clergy. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic formed the first tier of the old liberal arts before students advanced to arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. In American usage, grammar school coexisted with elementary school but began to sound old-fashioned by the 1960s. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why Are Elementary Schools Called Grammar Schools?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Grant. It’s Megan from East Hampton. How are you?
Great, Megan. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Megan.
Well, I’ve only just discovered you guys because I finally found SoundCloud and found out about podcasts and things like that.
So I’ve been listening to some of your older shows, and you made a reference at some point. You were talking about schools and things, and you made a reference to grammar school, and it occurred to me that grammar schools, which are also called elementary schools, which makes sense because they’re elementary topics, why would they be called a grammar school if you’re learning so much more than grammar?
That’s a great question. It’s a really good question. That never occurred to me.
Yeah. It’s just like the name for the thing. I didn’t even think of it to break it apart.
Right. We always call it grammar school.
Yeah, or elementary school, but still grammar school.
Well, Megan, the reason is that that’s what the earliest schools were centuries and centuries ago. The first schools were institutions that were connected with cathedrals and monasteries. And in order to train people to go into the ministry, the first thing you had to learn was Latin.
Very good. Latin grammar.
Yeah. And this is, what century are we talking about here? 1300s, 1400s?
The 12th century.
12th century, okay.
Yeah, they were called the scolae grammaticales.
Oh, so this term has, we just have an English version of the old Latin term, which is 800 years old.
Yes, yes, exactly.
That’s awesome.
But think about it. That’s a lot deeper than I expected.
We love it when that happens, Megan. We’re very shallow here. Deep is an accent.
And along those lines, though, does high school have the same sort of connotation? Is it just because it’s the higher grades, the higher numbered grades?
No, it’s about the pot smugglers out back behind the track.
No, it is that. It’s exactly that.
Yeah, yeah. And then for a while, grammar school and elementary school sort of existed side by side. And grammar school really dropped off in the 1960s.
It does sound dated to me now.
Yeah, grammar. Megan, thank you so much for your call. And glad to have you as a new listener.
Sure, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
There’s a ton of those in English. Just like these tiny little things that when you stop to think about it, you’re like, wait a second, that makes no sense.
Yes.
But here we have 800 years of history. Hundreds and hundreds of years.
Wow.
Yeah. And so the first things that people learned were grammar and rhetoric and logic. And then you moved on to university where you learned geometry and arithmetic and astronomy and music. And those were the seven liberal arts originally.
Very good.
Yeah.
But it starts with grammar. You know, I like these small little casual questions that reveal the depths of the English language.
If you’ve got one of them, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.
