University abbrev.

[Lynne Murphy]

UMass,  alma mater #1, was ZooMass.  Allegedly this started after
Playboy did an article in the late 1970s declaring UMass the best party
school.

Can't think of one for alma mater #2, U of Illinois, but we did call the
towns (Champaign-Urbana) "Shampoo-Banana".

At U of the Witwatersrand, the school is called "Wits"  (pronounced
Vits--as it's an Afrikaans place-name), but I admired one student's
bookbag, on which he'd inked in a T before WITS.  (I loved Wits, I just
also admire disaffected youths.)

Baylor doesn't have a nasty nickname (although one hears nonce nicknames
like "Baleful"), but here everyone talks about "the (Baylor) bubble."
Living in the Baylor bubble is a state of mind in which everything is
good with the world, Jesus loves you (and he'll love you more if you're
a bulimic with a nose job who's pledged Chi-O), and everyone in the
world has the inherent right to a Ford Explorer and a 4.0.  Students
refer to "Betty and Bobby Baylor"--the stereotypical relentlessly
cheery, well-off students with "good morals" and good looks and an
innocent approach to the world colored by their southern Baptist
religion and the ease with which they get through live on their parent's
money.  While most people use the terms negatively ("I have to get out
of the bubble"), a lot of them take comfort in the homogeneity of the
student body.

Lynne

--

M. Lynne Murphy, Assistant Professor in Linguistics
Department of English, Baylor University
PO Box 97404, Waco, TX 76798 USA
Phone:  254-710-6983     Fax:  254-710-3894
http://www.baylor.edu/~M_Lynne_Murphy