There’s a few things about North Carolina (and the South, in general) that I didn’t know when I was fresh off the boat. Here’s a few of them:

• ACC
• BBQ
• NCAA
• NASCAR
• UNC
• NCSU

The last two are particularly significant.You see, there are several schools in North Carolina that have the words “North Carolina” in their name. I can think of three or four right off the top of my head … and to make matters worse, some of them don’t really have anything else in their names to make them unique from the other schools with “North Carolina” in their names.

For instance: “ECU” stands for “East Carolina University”. The key descriptor here is “East”, and one can surmise that this school is in the Eastern part of the state.

We’re good so far, right?

This brings us to UNC - the hallowed University of North Carolina. A lovely school set in the quaint city of Chapel Hill. There’s always an abundance of powder-blue T-shirts to be seen (and an abundance of cute college girls in said powder-blue T-shirts). The buildings are ye olde buildings with ye olde ivy growing on them, etc., etc. They tell me that UNC has many fine programs.

Now, think carefully about this. The UNIVERSITY of NORTH CAROLINA.

Seems easy, right?

There’s another school called NCSU. That’s “North Carolina State University”. It shares the same three key words as the “University of North Carolina”, with the word “State” thrown in for good measure.

The problem is this: in the case of both schools, “North Carolina” refers to the state, because there’s no city called “North Carolina”, no county called “North Carolina”, and to the best of my knowledge - no country called “North Carolina”.

I guess the folks who named UNC figured that the “State” part was a bit redundant.

When I was fresh off the boat from Canuckistan, I heard all this banter about “State” and “Carolina”, and made the assumption that they were the same school. I also assumed that this school was fairly fashion-conscious, since they offered clothing in both powder blue and Ferrari red. And it seemed convenient that they had campuses in both Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

For my Canadian friends, this would be a bit like having the “University of Toronto” and the “Toronto City University”. And yes - they would both be in Toronto. And no, they would not be the same school.

In fact, they would have sporting rivalries between them akin to that of the Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wearing a powder blue T-shirt on the State campus would be a bit like strutting into Maple Leaf Gardens (oh, sorry - the Air Canada Centre) with the crimson-red Canadiens jersey.

And so, my dear North Carolinian friends, I ask you this: Could this wonderful state not have come up with more distinct names than “University of North Carolina” and “North Carolina State University”?

Sure makes it tough for us poutine-eating fresh-off-the-boat Canadiens.

6 comments
Posted in Blog
Written on Wed, 07 November 2007 at 10:12 pm
Tags: Canada, NCSU, North Carolina, UNC
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