USC

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Mon Sep 11 17:30:16 UTC 2006


On Sep 11, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Charlie Doyle wrote:

> ... 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.

and it goes by the name the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign (UIUC), minimally distinguished in its initialism from the
University of Illinois at Chicago (formerly the University of
Illinois at Chicago Circle), which is UIC (and is, of course, never
referred to as Chicago).  but you can see why the university shied
away from the name University of Illinois at Champaign.  but UICU
would have been possible (google on "UICU" and you're asked if you
mean "UIUC"), and would even have put the two towns in their order of
prominence (Champaign is considerably bigger than Urbana and has more
businesses and the like).  on the other hand, most of the university
is physically in Urbana.

arnold

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