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If an English major graduates from college, must one say,

She has a Bachelor of Arts?

May one instead say,

She is a Bachelor of Arts?

He has a master's

is certainly correct, but might one say,

He is a Master of Science?

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  • 1
    I am a native AmE speaker, and we do not use the degree in that manner. I do refer to Master Carpenters and some other skilled craftsman (guilded, usually). But for degrees, I hear, he has a bachelor's/master's. For the highest degree, though, it's not incommon to see someone described as a Doctor of Philosophy (e.g. at Yale, etc.) Commented Jun 20, 2014 at 5:39
  • @ElliottFrisch: I can't quite work out what you meant to say, but superlative doesn't mean anything to me that is relevant to the question.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jun 20, 2014 at 11:09
  • @medica - What if you go to school for Bating? Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 0:46

2 Answers 2

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It's not common to say She's a Bachelor of Arts, but I think it would be understood.

It would not be understood if you left out the of Arts.

Note that They're all PhDs is at least as common as They all have PhDs. But I don't think many people would say He's a Doctor of Philosophy.

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I don't have a citation, but in the American graduate school where I studied, we were taught (informally) that academic ranks were historically related to old medieval guild structure.

Although today we wouldn't refer to someone as a "Master" because of their M.S., scholars of the past would have recognized someone with an M.A. as a Master in their trade.

It is common to refer to people with a Ph.D as "Doctor", which is an exception to this rule.

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