Oh, please. The name of an Ivy League University English department is going to be changed because of the “conflation of English as language and English as a nationality”?

With all “due” respect to Cornell, that is utter nonsense. Does anyone with a modicum of intelligence confuse the name of an English department to mean “a department where we learn about ENGLAND”?

The answer to that rhetorical question is, of course, "No! No one with a modicum of intelligence would confuse the name of an English department with "a department where we learn about england.'" But, here's the thing, those Ivy League elite snobs at Cornell University don't really think the rest of us do have a modicum of intelligence. We do, however, and we also have enough sense to see that years of academic study don't necessarily equate with having a modicum of common sense or wisdom.