USC

[Wilson Gray]

I don't know what people say in Mississippi, but the University of
Missouri is either "Columbia" or "Mizzou," with "Columbia" being the
preferred term in the greater Saint Louis metropolitan area. Among
black St. Louisans, the University of Illinois is always referred to
as "Champaign" and the University of Iowa is always referred to as
"Iowa City." Southern Illinois University is referred to as
"Carbondale." SIU-Edwardsville came too late to get a designation that
I know of.

Little-known fact: back in the day, former slave states such as Texas
and Missouri paid the tuition of black students for them to go to
out-of-state, "Northern" state universities, if the local colored
state college didn't offer a particular major, but the local white
state university did, in order to maintain state-wide segregation. The
state of Texas paid my mother's sister to go to the University of Iowa
to major in chemistry, rather than admit her to the University of
Texas. Missouri paid the tuition for friends of mine to go to the
Universities of Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue, and
Cal-Berkeley rather than admit them to the University of
Missouri. Unfortunately for me, this practice was ended in Missouri in
1954, the year that I graduated from high school.

-Wilson
On 9/11/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: 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
>
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--
-Wilson
----
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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