2000 Overnoy Poulsard And Other Reasons to Visit France

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
There was a period during which a president of my university insisted on its being called The American University.
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This was a common nineteenth century usage. Hence, references to, e.g., "the Southern Pacific Railroad" (or just "the Southern Pacific") out here that continued until its merger late in the twentieth century, and I'm sure its successor, Union Pacific, does the same. Law faculty, students, and staff at Yale frequently say "the Yale Law School" and I'm virtually certain that it's the same at Harvard.
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I have taught, among other places, at "The Ohio State University" that wry sports fans refer to as tOSU (as in "tOSU coach Woody Hayes").
 
The OSU is annoying. But not as silly as Columbia's marketing campaign to be 'Columbia University in the City of New York'.

Although I guess it worked to boost applications. Or was that just the 1990s city-wide clean up.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
The OSU is annoying. But not as silly as Columbia's marketing campaign to be 'Columbia University in the City of New York'.

Although I guess it worked to boost applications. Or was that just the 1990s city-wide clean up.
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I don't recall it in the 1970s when I was living in NYC and sometimes cross-filed for courses at Columbia.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
I'm virtually certain that it's the same at Harvard.
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Not in my experience.
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You talking about the college? I'm only referring to the law school, and I've heard the usage from HLS grads.
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IME, the "HLS" usage (3 letters) is much more common.

Certainly, no one says, "teh Harvard College."
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

Certainly, no one says, "teh Harvard College."
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Oh,I'll bet that there are some non-native English speakers that would say it that way, along with those that would say, "ze Harvard College." ;)
 
originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
i often hear those in the medical profession refer to a patient or doctor as "...in hospital", omitting "the".
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That's a very British usage. You been hangin' out with limey medicos?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The other problem with the English language is the plethora of extraneous words. For example, why do we have words like "bad" or "awful" when it would be more efficient just to say "ungood" or "doubleplusungood"?
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Language is not developed by engineers. Those "extraneous" words each has its own origin and, very likely, its own shade of meaning.

It is, actually, one of the delights of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary that the definitions of words with many synonym are followed by a block that explains the shades of meaning that distinguish them. My favorite is the one that follows the word "bad".
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
i often hear those in the medical profession refer to a patient or doctor as "...in hospital", omitting "the".
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That's a very British usage. You been hangin' out with limey medicos?

Mark Lipton
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nope. just "the" wife and her colleagues.
 
With respect to all other examples, none of them is really analogous to the overreaching of a president of AU deciding that it will be called The American University. It wasn't simply a usage decision. There really is no reason for anyone around here to know the history of a second-tier private university (that would be a generous evaluation) with pretensions to grandeur but, needless to say, we have been afflicted with presidents until recently whose main job qualification was hypertrophied pretensions to grandeur combined with astonishingly developed senses of entitlement. I know that everyone who works in academics thinks the same, but trust me, our presidents have been better at both pretension and entitlement than yours--until it finally blew up around 5 years ago.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
The other problem with the English language is the plethora of extraneous words. For example, why do we have words like "bad" or "awful" when it would be more efficient just to say "ungood" or "doubleplusungood"?
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Language is not developed by engineers. Those "extraneous" words each has its own origin and, very likely, its own shade of meaning.

It is, actually, one of the delights of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary that the definitions of words with many synonym are followed by a block that explains the shades of meaning that distinguish them. My favorite is the one that follows the word "bad".
Click to expand...
I think you might've missed my reference...
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
With respect to all other examples, none of them is really analogous to the overreaching of a president of AU deciding that it will be called The American University. It wasn't simply a usage decision. There really is no reason for anyone around here to know the history of a second-tier private university (that would be a generous evaluation) with pretensions to grandeur but, needless to say, we have been afflicted with presidents until recently whose main job qualification was hypertrophied pretensions to grandeur combined with astonishingly developed senses of entitlement. I know that everyone who works in academics thinks the same, but trust me, our presidents have been better at both pretension and entitlement than yours--until it finally blew up around 5 years ago.
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Worse than John Silber?
 
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