"University" vs. "the University"?
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What's up with people saying "...when I was at University..." but omitting the article "the"?
This always bugs me for some reason, like misspelling, or bad punctuation. It makes University sound like a verb rather than a noun. It seems to be used only by natives of non-English-language countries, but I'm not sure.
Also seems Jews refer to their church as purely "Temple" not "the Temple." For example, "Tonight we're going to Temple."
Anyone know the etymology of these constructions, and can help inform an illiterate American?
This always bugs me for some reason, like misspelling, or bad punctuation. It makes University sound like a verb rather than a noun. It seems to be used only by natives of non-English-language countries, but I'm not sure.
Also seems Jews refer to their church as purely "Temple" not "the Temple." For example, "Tonight we're going to Temple."
Anyone know the etymology of these constructions, and can help inform an illiterate American?
Replies
But strange enough, some schools that are named with a surname seem to work just fine without an article (the, a, an, are called "articles"). For example, "I was at Brown University."
I tend to chalk up such anomolies to English just being such a mess of a language, with all its special cases.
I think the weirdness I feel when I hear it is because I personally think of the word "university" as a pronoun, not a general place. Same thing with "temple" I guess.
Weird how language and associations work. Thanks guys.
And it's not 'using it as a pronoun', I think you mean using it as a proper noun. A pronoun is a substitute noun, like 'he', 'she' or 'it'. A proper noun is like a name. What you mean is, the Euro style uses 'university' as a common noun. What might be tripping you up is the capitalization, like you see KDR using. In German they capitalize common nouns, which in US English is reserved for proper nouns.
Uh, what was this thread about, again...?
/jzero
It is only needed when you want to be specific.
When talking about your past experience at university, you don't really need to be specific about any particular university as you're just referring to the university experience.
In any event, it's best not to dwell too hard on the inconsitencies in our language. It's a fucking mess.
Like:
1) I ate an apple.
2) I ate the apple.
1st case it was just some random apple 2nd case it was an apple that both sides knew about.
Atleast thats what my limited knowledge of english tells me.
"when I went to school" vs "When I wenht to the school"
as Is
"I play the guitar" cs. "I play guitar"
I avoid the "the" infront of educational instituations always. I always thought my teacher said to never use it...
when speaking of a specific in your life, its common to give it elevated importance. So the university is made University, because it is the one you attended.
thats my take on it. we welcome yours.
"When I was at University" sounds perfectly natural to me. That's because I'm English, and that's as jzero says the correct vernacular in the originial English.
Ya know what always bugged me? "Write me" as opposed to the infinitely more proper sounding "Write to me"
"suck me" vs. "suck to me?"
I dunno man.
is closer
Hmmm.
"suck me" vs. "suck to me?"
I dunno man.
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The sucking is performed ON you not TO you thus "suck me" is correct opposed to "write me" where the writing is done TO you and not OF you.
For example "paint me" would be a request to the painter to use you as a subject matter on hes/her painting.
"At university" sounds fine to me, as was mentioned earlier, it's pretty analagous to saying "I was at college" ... you wouldn't say "at the college" or "at the university" unless you were talking about a specific building or location which the other person knew about.
"I went to the hospital" not "I went to hospital"
"I am going on a vacation" not "I am going on holiday"
Just a funny little quirk that ended up being different as we drifted farther away from england. ;D
If you "went to the hospital", it's more likely you're talking to someone you know, who knows the place you went, so they can make the association as to which hospital "that" hospital is.
If you "went to hospital", it'd be a more general thing you'd use when it wasn't really important if they knew where it was or not, like if you were making an excuse for not showing up at a job interview - you'd say "Sorry, I couldn't make it, I had to go to hospital for whatever reason"...
I dunno, that's how it seems to me, anyway.
Weird.
And maybe someone can clue an old codger in... what's "teh" from? 733t speak?
(there is small possibility that im wrong, as usual)
edit: lets turn it into "the spinning university" thread!!
teh is just something that people commonly mistyped and its used to be funny now I guess? hehe
"omg teh lollerskates"
I was raised in California, so I'm sure that had an impact on my English (besides the surfer dude 'tude).
"The Hospital" and "The University" are built of bricks, they're those great big buildings over there swilling with sick people and loudmouth tossers respectively.
whereas ...
"Hospital" and "University" are generalities that everyone understands, but you don't necessarily need a physical frame of reference to comprehend.
two phonecalls :
"I'm in Hospital"
"Oh dear. Which one?"
or
"I'm in The Hospital"
"Well gimme a call when you're discharged, i'll come pick you up"
"You mean you'll come AND pick me up"
"Oh fuck off"
"Come get some dinner" or "go do that then" are quite blatantly missing an "and" in between the first two words. You can't "come get", but you can "come and get"... they're separate actions!
Hmmm.
"suck me" vs. "suck to me?"
I dunno man.
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hmmn, "suck the me" has a bit of a ring to it