On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Dave Newt wrote:

Richard J. wrote:
Dave Newt wrote:

Richard J. wrote:

Some of us care deeply about commas, and are trying to work out
where this comma is supposed to go, or not go. How about an
explanation for the uninitiated?

It used to be called Imperial College, and was referred to as IC.
[...] However, this creates a false analogy with University College,
London, which has a comma in it and is commonly referred to as UCL.

On UCL's site www.ucl.ac.uk, they use UCL as the name almost
exclusively, even in the history ("175 years ago ... UCL was
founded"). Where the name is given in full, I haven't seen one
instance on their site where the comma is included.

You're right - they *must* have changed it. It always was with a comma.

There was a consultation about the name a few months ago: everyone got a
questionnaire with things like "How do refer to UCL to other people inside
it?", "Ditto but for people outside?", "What qualities do you associate
with the name?" and other inane marketroid nonsense. This was clearly
intended to provide input into some brand-sharpening exercise, so perhaps
that's when the comma was disappeared.

tom

--
Restate my assumptions

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:52:17 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:

"How do refer to UCL to other people inside it?", "Ditto but for
people outside?", "What qualities do you associate with the name?"

I suppose they'd have been annoyed if you said they were ucly
qualities...

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