USC

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:00 PM -0400 9/11/06, sagehen wrote:
>  >Is this why OSU refers to itself as "THE Ohio State University"?
>  >
>>

So it appears; a recent paper on definiteness and uniqueness by
Craige Roberts (of the Ohio State University), uses this as an
example for this very reason.*  But AFAIK Penn State isn't "the
Pennsylvania State University" to distinguish it from the University
of Pennsylvania (maybe because they wouldn't really mind being
confused with Penn while the relevant OSU would mind being confused
with Ohio U?).

>  >>
>>>  Perhaps this is the time to remember the OHIO war ... in
>>>  which Ohio Univ (Athens, 1804) wrestled the use of the name
>>>  "Ohio" in publicity from that new land-grant university in
>>>  Columbus (1858?)  Previously Ohio State had used the word
>>>  "Ohio" alone w/o State in their self-reference.
>>>
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Then there's Miami University, another source of confusion among Ohio schools.
>AM
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>    WAR   BREEDS   TERRORISM
>~^~^~^~~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


*"When I took my present position, I thought it odd that the official
name of the university is The Ohio State University, since most
university names omit an article. Someone explained to me that in the
nineteenth century the trustees of this state school were irate when
a group in southern
Ohio had the temerity to name their new private university Ohio
University, since the name might be taken to suggest an official
affiliation with the state. So, in 1878, when they changed this
institution's name from the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College,
they included the definite article in OSU's official name to counter
the impression that there was any other state university in Ohio."

(Craige Roberts, "Uniqueness in Definite Noun Phrases", Linguistics
and Philosophy 26 (2003): 287-350)

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