<p>Pizzagirl
I understand SC and I think most southern Californians do. Sportscasters have used that term on the local news, along with Cal.</p>
<p>
Also Oklahoma State University. It’s especially confusing since Oklahoma and Oregon have similar colors</p>
<p>Everyone in CA knows what SC stands for…second choice <strong>ducking and covering now…</strong></p>
<p>In Oregon, University of Oregon is most often referred to as U of O, only occasionally UO, but never OU. A good way to spot a bandwagon fan with no knowledge of the school.</p>
<p>The University of Oklahoma is known as OU, which makes no sense to me. Same for University of Kansas, or KU.</p>
<p>^And CU too. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ditto. Berk sounds about as bad as Frisco.</p>
<p>The whole OSU overlap resulted in The Ohio State Univ, I always thought that was a strange one.</p>
<p>Here’s a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia page showing the colloquial names for a good number of universities if anyone’s interested:
[List</a> of colloquial names for universities and colleges in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colloquial_names_for_universities_and_colleges_in_the_United_States]List”>List of colloquial names for universities and colleges in the United States - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Also, don’t forget the other OU, Ohio University. Basically, it’s a good thing that Oklahoma and Ohio are so far apart.</p>
<p>sea_tide:</p>
<p>Back in the 80’s when Jerry Tarkanian built the UNLV basketball team into a national power, UNLV was much more well known in the sports world than Nevada-Reno.</p>
<p>Nevada-Reno then starting calling itself simply Nevada, or University of Nevada, as it wanted to re-assert its position as the flagship university dating from the late 1800’s. UNLV didn’t even exist until 1957.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>USC has always meant University of Southern California to me, even when I lived on the east coast and midwest. But now that I live in North Carolina, “USC” means University of South Carolina and I have to get used to that.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but one of the university naming affectations that I find ridiculous is calling “Ohio State”,</p>
<p>"THE Ohio State University"… you gotta include that “THE”… lol</p>
<p>Adding to the SC confusion, while in Northern CA, a couple of people thought I was talking about Santa Clara U when I said “SC.”</p>
<p>It cracks me up whenever I hear a sports commentator refer to “Georgia Tech University” or “Virginia Tech University”. It happens frequently, usually by an ex-jock.</p>
<p>Poor Ohioans. Since the school in Columbus is the oldest “OSU”, they started referring to it as THE Ohio State University (as opposed to Oklahoma and Oregon). As if Ohio University didn’t have enough of an inferiority complex, they were sued by Univ. of Oklahoma to prevent them from using “OU” (allegedly why Oregon also does not use “OU”). However, no one knows why tOSU plays football in Ohio Stadium, not Ohio State Stadium.</p>
<p>Adding to the confusion, “UC” in Ohio refers to Cincinnati, not California. Case Western Reserve University is only one school formed from the merger of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve College - there is no longer a separate Case Institute of Technology. Others have also noted that Miami University is a prestigious public school in Ohio while the University of Miami is a private school in Florida with a higher national sports profile.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, “IU” seems universally recognized as Indiana University, not neighboring Illinois, or Iowa, or especially Idaho which is more than a thousand miles away.</p>
<p>I don’t think Illinois has an “IU”. It’s U of I or Illinois State.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, yeah - people in that area would (or might). But we live in Chicago. Which is kind of the point of this thread - a lot of these names and nicknames are very regional.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The reason’s pretty clear - one is named Indiana University, whereas the others are University of Illinois and University of Iowa. So of course no one would use IU for the latter 2.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard SCU referred to as SC. It’s usually “Santa Clara”, at least in my small population of friends whose kids go there.</p>
<p>The accent is key in San Jos</p>
<p>Living in Ohio I never really encountered the “The” very often. Most people just referred to it as Ohio State or OSU. Although every now and then someone mentioning the school would take the opportunity to use the “full name.” It isn’t the only university title with a The at the front, but it’s the most emphasized for sure.</p>
<p>I find the whole “The” obsession pretty dumb and unnecessary, but it serves as a good representation of just how much Ohioans love the school, especially with having not much else to be proud of there.</p>
<p>I have never heard of Santa Clara referred to as SC either, but I heard others think I was talking about Santa Clara when I said “SC.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Santa Clara University used to be named University of Santa Clara. But they apparently got tired of the “USC” mix-up.</p>
<p>[Santa</a> Clara University School of Engineering - A Rose by Any Other Name …](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/engineering/centennial/name-change.cfm]Santa”>Centennial - School of Engineering - Santa Clara University)</p>
<p>Just found out that there’s a Miami in Oklahoma. If only one of the state legislators had been intrepid enough to fund a Miami College in the town…</p>
<p>pizzagirl wrote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So of course, the University of Oklahoma would NOT be “OU” and the University of Kansas would NOT be “KU”. Except that they are…</p>
<p>I once knew someone who insisted on pronouncing Berkeley as “barkly” because, as he correctly noted, the city of Berkeley, California, after which the university is named, was itself named after the 18th century Irish idealist philosopher George Berkeley (a.k.a. Bishop Berkeley), whose name was pronounced “barkly.”</p>
<p>Looking at all the alphabet soup overlap here, I’ve actually had my college (Carnegie Mellon University) mixed up with Central Michigan University a number of times when CMU comes up.</p>