USC

[hpst@earthlink.net]

The University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana is and was largely located in
Urbana not Champaign even though you only have to cross a street in order
to get from one town to another which we regularly did almost every day
when I was in graduate school and taught there.

We used to call the university CU which distinguished it from The
University of Illinois, Chicago.

The two branches were separate which caused some problems because they had
different requirements for graduation.

Champaign was a creation of The Illinois Central Railroad which
intentionally by passed Urbana in order to avoid having to not have to pay
property taxes to the already existing town of Urbana but over the years
the two towns two towns grew together.

You can still see the remnants of Champaign's origin in terms of the street
names in downtown Champaign which are parallel to the IC tracks and which
are generic since they are the same as at least 13 if not more towns the IC
founded along its line.

This is due to the fact that some of  those who founded the IC were land
speculators who used their economic power to make fortunes for themselves
by buying up land, laying out generic streets and then made certain that
the railroad passed through the property they owned.

As a kid who grew up in Centralia, Illinois, another generic town with the
same street names down town we never referred The UofI as anything except
Champaign in spite of the fact that it was largely located in Urbana.

Page Stephens

> [Original Message]
> From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 9/11/2006 1:09:54 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] USC
>
> In one sense, nicknaming a college or university for the town of its
location seems to have a bit of snob appeal, or at least to function within
an "in-group" comprising academicians:  "Chapel Hill," "Ann Arbor,"
"Bloomington," "Berkeley."  The pattern occurs mostly with smallish cities
or "college towns."  We wouldn’t likely refer to universities as
"Minneapolis" or "Philadelphia" or "Atlanta."
>
> In another sense, the nicknaming can be general (as to social class or
whatever) but  more localized:  "He got his degree from Athens"  or
"Gainesville" or "Austin"  might be said by residents of the respective
states but probably by few outsiders.  Of course, ambiguity needs to be
avoided; I doubt if anybody much calls the University of Missouri
"Columbia" or the University of Mississippi "Oxford."
>
> Interesting distinction:  I have on occasion (snobbishly?) referred to
the University of Illinois as "Urbana."  My wife, on the other hand, a
Chicagoan, regularly speaks of this or that nephew as being a student at
"Champaign-Urbana."  Apparently, the university’s actual mailing address
is Champaign.
>
> --Charlie
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org