Language Log

My institution was for many years known interchangeably as "University of Manchester" and "Manchester University", thus illustrating one of the threads you have covered in Language Log.  Only when feeling very pompous and formal did it use its full title, "Victoria University of Manchester".  It had a sister/offshoot institution called, almost universally, "UMIST", which stood (or had once stood) for "University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology".  The relationship between them was complex and had changed several times in the course of the twentieth century.  In some respects UMIST was legally one faculty of Manchester University, in others a separate and thriving institution.  (I have not checked any of these details, which were confusing enough even when fresh in the memory.)  By the end of the millennium, UMIST had effectively become a wholly separate university.  Then a grand plan emerged to bring them together again as a single university in 2004, one of the largest in the UK, and - yes - with one of those resounding mission statements about world domination by 2015.  [AMZ note: 2015 figures very prominently in these Mission Statements, 2010 apparently being just too soon to achieve lofty goals.]  It was really quite a large-scale merger by British university standards.  But what to call the important new arrival?  It clearly had to have the words "University" and "Manchester" in it, but it could not be called "University of Manchester", lest UMIST people should feel that they had been absorbed by the larger partner.  Consultants were employed, meetings were held, questionnaires went out to all stakeholders (as they are called) in both institutions.  It all took a long time.  Eventually we in the "University of Manchester" learnt what our new name was to be:  it was "The University of Manchester".  We had gained a definite article.  Our "The" must always have initial caps (and its font, size, colour and spacing in logos and letterheads and posters and websites are minutely regulated).  It's a very definite article.