"Supercurricular"

The use and misuse of Latin

I’ve been investigating helping out my 6th form lately, with the view of giving a talk for students with an idea of what Oxbridge is about, should they be interested in applying. The main thing for me is to get across that Oxbridge has a particular style of education. It may have a certain prestige but its methods are peculiar and that needs to be understood before going into it.

The method? It’s basically a combination of very hands-off and very hands-on. The hands-off part puts you in a world class selection of libraries, on your own, to write an essay with very limited instruction. Then comes the hands-on part, the ‘tutorial’ (Oxford) or ‘supervision’ (Cambridge). These are taught in small groups and you talk about your weekly essay, and maybe have an argument about them.

Anyway, this process of checking up on the admissions process made me look at the Cambridge web pages on admission. My eye caught on a particular word, which screamed out of the digital page:

I did a triple take. Supercurricular. What does that mean? Really curricular? Something really really within what you’re expected to know, absolutely sticking to the minimum required? No, of course that’s not what was meant. What is really meant, is, well, not that obvious.

“Supercurricular” is not in the OED. It’s not in their online edition, which is extremely thorough and authoritative. Neither is “supercurricular” to be found in Wiktionary, which is not authoritative, but it is extremely generous at capturing very obscure and obsolete words.

Downing College, Cambridge (February 2020, so you can imagine this is an eery and atmospheric photograph)

If one does a quote search of “supercurricular” one gets a few hits. First are the pages of Oxford and Cambridge universities’ admissions departments. Next are a variety of independent/fee paying/selective schools websites which are trying to help people get into Oxford or Cambridge. And finally, we have a bunch of Reddit posts asking how many “supercurricular” activities one must do to get in to one of two institutions—big intake of breath—Oxford or Cambridge.

It seems that “supercurricular” is virtually a hapax legomenon of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. A hapax legomenon is a word which is attested only once. It’s also a two-word phrase which is sufficiently obscure to come up with red underlining, which says to the writer “what are you on about this is a spelling mistake”. Similarly, the word “supercurricular” gets the same rubicund bunting. Obviously, my Google searches show a few attestations, but these are copycatting from Oxbridge, pandering to an otherwise suspiciously rare term.

Because of the uniqueness of the term, the reader will have to try and define the term themselves. This is surely a massive problem for a pair of universities who are trying to widen access. This is even more of a problem for a pair of universities who are constantly under national scrutiny about widening access. It might be a different matter if the word were merely obscure. Then we might say that the admissions departments were taking the opportunity to educate prospective applicants. Maybe. But this word, “supercurricular”, is arguably not a word at all. The OED certainly doesn’t think it is, and neither do the relaxed folk of Wiktionary.

Alright, Cambridge university’s website does give a definition of ‘super-curricular’ which it hyphenates by the way in recognition that the word isn’t a real word. They state:

“Super-curricular is different to extra-curricular. Extra-curricular activities are those outside of your chosen topic, and unrelated to your studies, whereas super-curricular activities take the subjects you study further, beyond what you have learnt at school or college.”

I agree that “super-curricular” is different to '“extra-curricular”, but for alternative reasons, namely that “super-curricular” isn’t a thing, and “extra-curricular” is.

Let’s get into what this whole “super” business is all about.

“Super” has been borrowed into English from Latin as a prefix meaning ‘above’, ‘on top of’, ‘beyond’ and has further widened into an intensifier meaning ‘really’, ‘special’, ‘superhero’, or ‘extra’.

“Extra” has also been borrowed into English from Latin, as a prefix meaning ‘outside of’, ‘alien-to’, but also, because of the way language naturally develops has further widened into an intensifier meaning ‘above’, ‘beyond’, ‘really’, and ‘super’.

Note that the two words do not only overlap significantly in English, but they overlapped even in Latin. Oxford and Cambridge have elected to use a word which is not considered a real word by anyone else, based on a distinction between two Latinate prefixes which is nitpicky at best, and non-existent at worst.

It gets worse. The Cambridge university definition of “supercurricular” distinction only makes sense by defining “curriculum” incorrectly. They say that extra curricular is “outside of your chosen topic” and therefore extra-curricular. But a curriculum is not a ‘topic’. A curriculum is specifically a course of study. It is a prescription, a shopping list, something particular. So even if something is related to your course of study, but not in your curriculum, it is by definition extra curricular! It’s outside of your curriculum. Extra. To top it all off, when they try to add flesh on the bone and define “supercurricular” further, they use two words which are basically synonymous with extra! “further, beyond what you have learnt at school or college”! Extra! Argh!

I love Latin. I like being self indulgent with words. I really like playing with words and making fake Latinisms. I enjoy watching videos of people speaking in Latin because I think it is impressive. No, I can’t speak it myself, and no, my reading abilities are not very good. They’re basic, in fact. But they’re good enough to spot someone fiddling with a Latin prefix in English for no good reason.

There is a time and a place for these linguistic antics. Online admissions pages, targeted at sixteen and seventeen year olds from a variety of different backgrounds, are absolutely not that time or place. If there was a meaningful distinction, if the word was absolutely necessary to get some meaning across, I wouldn’t really care about it. I don’t think something’s absence in the OED or Wiktionary is some kind of smoking gun. But it should give pause for thought.

Finally, I will give the two universities a free suggestion for what they should say instead. I am sure they will take up my offer with speed and enthusiasm :)

“We want to see you’re interested in studies beyond what you’re taught in class. To this end, ‘extra curricular’ activities such as starting a YouTube channel, visiting museums, drawing diagrams, and simply reading books other than textbooks, are great. The key thing is for the activities to be relevant to what you want to study. We’re less focussed on things like sporting activities, unless they relate in some way to the degree you’d like to do with us.”

The sheer haughtiness of this “supercurricular” business has wound me up. In fact, it’s enraged me in a way I didn’t expect and is probably disproportionate to how unimportant this really is. Oh well. It’s given me a real boost—I feel quite perky, even super.