IHL

[neil]

on 22/4/05 6:45 pm, Mark A. Mandel at mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      IHL
>
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> In a thread on the American Name Society mailing list about British versus
> American usage of "college" and "university", someone wrote:
>
> #Or with one of the IHLs in our nation's capital -- as a British friend did
> #not long ago, asking if I might be able to check a book for him in the Univ
> #of Washington library.
>
> I asked:
>> "IHL"?
>
> The other answered off-list:
> #Well, the I stands for Institutions ...
> [That is, "institution(s) of higher learning". If we were being
> extremely picky we would have an example of double pluralization here, but
> heck, this is conversation. --MAM]
>
> and added:
>
> #I'd probably never seen it until I wrote it -- but I didn't think it would
> #be difficult to decipher.  The term, after all, is widely used even if not
> #abbreviated as I chose to do.
> #
> #Maybe subconsciously I picked the term because it gets around all the recent
> #discussion (much of it rather fine-pointed IMHO) about college/university
> #and whether and when a "the" is necessary ...
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

Duh? so what's your point? (after several glasses of Merlot - don't go
there)