The Semantics of the 'Single'

Tara Arden-Smith wrote an article on life in Winthrop House in which she mentioned that in the Throp, even seniors don't get singles. In a March 9 letter, the president of the Winthrop House Committee, Aren R. Cohen, rebutted that charge, stating that all Winthrop seniors do in fact have access to singles in their suites.

True enough. But at Harvard, things are not always as they seem, or sound. Take the term "tutor" in concentrations, these are the folks responsible for in-depth, rigorous treatment of a particular out of topics; in the houses, they are adhoc intellectual spice, the stuff which sets houses apart from being just dorms. Same word, quite different meanings.

So, too, with "single." In Winthrop, seniors might well get their own bedrooms in suites of several. In Lowell, and other places perhaps, "single" refers to one's own common room, bath, and bedroom. There are maybe a dozen such senior singles in Lowell, places that would be called junior doubles or even (shudder) sophomore triples in Winthrop; or they'd be tutor suites. This difference existed when I was an undergraduate and it persists today.

Now, don't get me wrong: I love Winthrop, lived there for three years, think it's by far the best house, crowding notwithstanding. But the community ought to be aware of these disparities. Thom Lockerby '87