When you receive a four-year college degree, you typically become a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. But bachelor is also a term for an adult, unmarried man. What’s the connection? In the...

When you receive a four-year college degree, you typically become a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. But bachelor is also a term for an adult, unmarried man. What’s the connection? In the Middle Ages, were unmarried men all supposed to have advanced degrees?

Actually, there is no connection. In the original Vulgar Latin (Latin spoken by the common people), baccalaris meant a poor unmarried “farmhand” and baccalaureus meant “advanced student” (from bacca laureus, the laurel branch used to honor degree holders). Both words entered the English language in the late fourteenth century, but because they sounded almost the same, they both became bachelor.