another orphan

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sun Sep 10 17:10:33 UTC 2006


On Sep 10, 2006, at 6:17 AM, Larry Horn wrote:

> At 1:28 AM -0400 9/10/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> And there are originally-local orphans, such as UCLA and SC.
>
> Do these really count as orphans?  They do still unpack in the
> original ways, after all.

they are not orphans.  they're just very widely used abbreviations,
appreciated as such by those who use them, and not disavowed by the
institutions in question.
>
>> The use
>> of "SC" instead of "USC" for the University of Southern California
>> may
>> be peculiar to BE.
>
> From my L.A. days, I'm pretty sure no such restriction exists.  "He
> goes to SC", as I recall, was (and I assume still is, in L.A.) pretty
> standard usage.

in my experience, yes.

>   Note that this can only standard for the *University
> of* Southern California; you never (I venture to guess) get "SC" to
> refer to "southern California" tout court ("The Democrats held the
> northern part of the state, but SC went Republican"--naaah).

right.  that would be SoCal, but never SC.

>> I almost cried when I discovered that the A&P was originally the
>> "Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company."

ah, a bit of lost poetry.  but the "Tea" part is really way too
limiting.

arnold, in NoCal (a.k.a. NorCal)

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