(urth) Dionysus

[Lee Berman]

>Andrew Mason: (Tangent: I do in fact notice occasional British-seeming things
>turning up in Wolfe's work. One that I can recall is in 'The Story of
>the Student and his Son'. That story turns on a pun between 'thesis'
>and 'Theseus'. But the student is clearly a doctoral student, given
>the length of time he is taking over it, and Americans normally speak
>of doctoral dissertations, not theses.

FWIW- Having come from American academia I'll tesify that in my experience thesis
and dissertation can be used somewhat interchangeably, especially informally. It is a pain
to say "dissertation" all the time when talking to your friends. Sometimes dissertation is
used to refer to the actual piece of work while thesis might refer to its topic.
 
 
Formally, the word, "dissertation" is most likely to be used for the Ph.D. paper while 
"thesis" is most common for the final Masters project. That's my experience.