We’re a curious bunch, us Brits. We boast two of the most revered and envied universities in the world, Oxford and Cambridge, which have educated huge numbers of global leaders, scientists and cultural figures, and produced all sorts of historically significant discoveries, theories and inventions. And yet calling someone “Oxbridge-educated”, in this country, is often seen as some kind of put-down; a way of getting one up against opponents. Take conservative academic and commentator Matthew Goodwin, for instance, author of a new book on a “new elite” of “radical woke” liberals, “often defined by their elite education”. On Monday, Goodwin lashed out at the “left-leaning Oxbridge graduates” who were criticising his book — tweeting a list of critics along with the university they went to next to their names (seven of the nine were educated at Oxford, one at Cambridge and one at LSE), along with the line, “Guys have I touched a nerve? lol”.
我們英國人很古怪。我們夸耀自己擁有世界上最受人尊敬和最令人羨慕的兩所大學——牛津大學(University of Oxford)和劍橋大學(University of Cambridge)，這兩所大學培養了眾多全球領導人、科學家和文化名人，并產出了各種具有歷史意義的發現、理論和發明。然而，在這個國家，稱某人是“牛津劍橋畢業的”常常被視為一種貶低，一種顯得說話者自己高人一等的方法。