<p>Never heard ‘barkly’, only ‘berserkly’ ;).</p>
<p>Growing up on the East Coast, Berkeley was always misspelled. It should have been Berklee.</p>
<p>Similar to the situation in Wisconsin, UTA means the University of Texas at Arlington, not the campus in Austin.</p>
<p>Also, most people probably don’t know that the proper name for Rice is William Marsh Rice University.</p>
<p>This is an enjoyable thread. </p>
<p>When we went to tour “Kansas” or “KU” a few months ago, I was a little embarrassed that I did not know their formal name was the University of Kansas. Why not use UK instead of KU? Kentucky issue? </p>
<p>We were also interested that Iowa State University was short for Iowa State University of Science and Technology.</p>
<p>Here in Colorado we have The University of Colorado (naturally CU, not UC). We also have UNC or UNC-G (University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, not that other one on the East Coast, and we used to have USC (University of Southern Colorado). And lastly we have UCLA - The University of Colorado between Lawrence and Araphoe (The local college in Denver between Lawrence and Arapahoe Streets).</p>
<p>I went to Colby College for undergrad, and we all developed quite a complex after repeatedly hearing “Isn’t that a 2 year girl’s school” from many a person who was thinking of Colby-Sawyer and who hadn’t caught up with the fact that late 1980’s liberal arts students did not appreciate being called “girls.” </p>
<p>Not being a sports fan, I never heard of “Cal” until now. It was always “Berkeley,” as I heard, and was duly respected as a great school. On CC, I find myself frustrated when conversations get too California-public centric, mostly because “Pomona” never means what I expect it to.</p>
<p>Mainers will always call their flagship “UMO,” but outside of Northern New England, it pretty much guarantees a “what, Missouri?” </p>
<p>The University of Connecticut is always UConn, and the University of Massachusetts is always UMass. Never UofC or UofM or other abbreviations. </p>
<p>I went to grad school at THE Catholic University of America, which shares with Ohio State a bit of a grudge about a definite article.</p>
<p>Some comments on previous posts. In Wisconsin we also call the flagship university Wisconsin or Madison- even though there are several other UW campuses (we were upset in the early 1970’s when they merged the former WSU- Wisconsin State University system- with the UW system as we did not want all of those lesser schools getting a UW diploma, never even considering the other 3 lesser schools that were already in the UW system) and there is a small college in Madison besides the former MATC (now Madison college I guess).</p>
<p>In Wisconsin we call it Michigan and due to the lake (Michigan, of course) there isn’t much contact. U of M means U of Minnesota- the road signs on the interstate in Minneapolis even have a “UofM” exit sign. Trivia- you can walk across the Mississippi River on the main U of M campus.</p>
<p>With an Indian H I learned about the very prestigious IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)- and learned about the Chicago area IIT from regional TV ads.</p>
<p>We always mocked/found weird THE Ohio State’s use of the word the- no one else was that pretentious in the Big Ten (which, sadly, has morphed into two divisions and 12 - to be more someday?- teams). btw- found out the big draw to being in the Big Ten is the academic consortium- member schools get money for research or such.</p>
<p>I once confused a Chicagoan by suggesting their child may want to check out IU in Bloomington for music when they were lamenting that said child was unlikely to get accepted to Madison (UW)- they were thinking of the Illinois campus in Bloomington, IL and not the flagship in Bloomington, Indiana.</p>
<p>Lake Superior State is a small Michigan school in Sault Ste. Marie and UW-Superior is in Superior WI, just across the border from Duluth, MN (which has UMD per its website). It’s a huge lake.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned Columbia University of the City of New York.</p>
<p>Of course, there are the United States Military Academy (a/k/a West Point) and the United States Naval Academy (a/k/a Annapolis). I’ve heard people say “I went to the Naval Academy,” but never “I went to the Military Academy.”</p>
<p>Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) deserves some kind of prize for creating confusion. There is not only a California University (of Pennsylvania), but also an Indiana University (of Pennsylvania). Kutztown University of Pennsylvania was actually sued by the University of Kansas because its “KU” logo and colors were indistinguishable from Kansas’. And of course none of those institutions (or its many mates, including West Chester University of Pennsylvania, East Stroudsberg University of Pennsylvania, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania . . . ) have anything to do with the University of Pennsylvania or with the Pennsylvania State University, which have nothing to do with one another.</p>
<p>Locally, the past few decades have been a period of furious renaming and rebranding. Beaver College became Arcadia University (more’s the pity, but it’s easy to see why). Philadelphia College of Bible changed its name to Philadelphia Biblical University, and then just recently decided to become Cairn University. The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy became University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science became Philadelphia University. In the 80s, what had once been the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts merged and became University of the Arts.</p>
<p>One real name that surprised me a bit when I found out about it: Texas A&M University. That’s the actual name. I thought it was Texas Agricultural & Mechanical University, but apparently it isn’t. The Texas Legislature at some point passed a bill declaring that the “A” and “M” were “purely symbolic” and no longer referred to “Agricultural” or “Mechanical”.</p>
<p>^^ The college in Bloomington Illinois is Illinois Wesleyan University aka “Wesleyan”. You’re probably thinking of Illinois State in Normal, mainly referred to as “ISU” and never known as “State”.</p>
<p>But, of course, where I live, most people hear “Wesleyan” and think of a NESCAC school in Middletown, CT.</p>
<p>The University of Minnesota-Manteo is now called Minnesota State. The Minnesota State Screaming Eagles was the fictional college football team in the sitcom Coach, starring Craig T Nelson, Shelly Fabares, and Jerry Van Dyke.</p>
<p>^^ OMG and I always thought that it was Makato the show as modeled after. Coach was McLean Stevenson…who was a graduate of Northwestern (in Chicago). His son was a friend when I was in grad school.</p>
<p>McLean Stevenson is from Bloomington-Normal (Bloomington is the county seat of McLean County).</p>
<p>The name now is Minnesota State University, Mankato and it used to be Mankato State University, not University of Minnesota-Mankato.</p>
<p>annoyingdad–</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. My point was that the school now has the same name as the fictional school in the TV sitcom. Their hockey team is referred to as Minnesota State. They played my alma mater earlier this season.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys–</p>
<p>I am 100% certain the football coach on “Coach” was played by Craig T Nelson, not McLean Stevenson.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, Craig T. Nelson, for heaven’s sake.</p></li>
<li><p>I have as many cousins as cobrat, it seems, and one of the most important has spent the past 30 years as a professor at Mankato State (now, I guess, Minnesota State - Mankato). It’s a place I have actually visited, several times. I never made the connection with Coach, though.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I never heard Michigan referred to as U-Mish until recent years; it was always “U of M” or just “Michigan” when I was there in the 70’s. Sometimes you’d just tell people you went to school in Ann Arbor which was also referred to as A2 (pronounced “A squared”).</p>
<p>Grew up in the Pacific Northwest hearing that Bay Area school to the south referred to as “Cal.” Didn’t hear anyone refer to it as Berkeley until I came east. And I thought it was humorous to find that the NY Times always insisted on fully spelling out “U of California-Los Angeles” in the sports section. On the other hand, they never say “Pennsylvania State U.”</p>
<p>I assure you that everyone who lives between Spartanburg, Clemson and Charleston refers to that school in Columbia as “Carolina.”</p>
<p>Never understood why the universities of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Tulsa respectively refer to themselves as OU, KU, CU and TU. It must be a ‘great plains’ thing, or a cattle thing.</p>
<p>Then there’s UVM - University of Vermont. UVM stands for Universitas Viridis Montis, Latin for “University of the Green Mountains”</p>
<p>I’m a transplant to New England so it took me awhile to figure that one out.</p>
<p>LOL, I never thought of that one until my husband (a Maryland native) moved up here and asked. I thought it was obvious in my familiarity…Vert. Mont. Green Mountain State= Vermont. VM. See? It also keeps going because many New Englanders still think the two-letter state abbreviations are suspect, hence UConn and UMass.</p>