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Comment by vtbassmatt | Hacker News Reader

As a Hokie, it drives me crazy that journalists (and ESPN) continue to use the non-name “VA Tech”. It’s VT, Virginia Tech, or the full name, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. https://brand.vt.edu/licensing/university-trademarks.html#tr...

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If it makes you feel any better, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo is most commonly just known as SLO. There are two other Cal Polys, one of which is known as CPP (Cal Poly Pomona) and the other mostly just referred to as Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt). Moreover, unless you knew this already, if you Google "cal poly" it'll only return results about SLO, further muddying the waters.

As a Wahoo, I don't have the "VA Tech" issue, but I assume journos write it that way because their style guides tell them abbreviating states is acceptable, and they don't care that they're doing it to a trademark that doesn't support abbreviation.

Context is key. "Cal" refers to "The University of California, Berkeley", even though Davis, Los Angeles, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego, etc etc

"Cal Poly" is shorthand for the SLO campus. It's the original, and the most established one. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/13/ca...

Cal Poly Humboldt was only renamed three years ago. It's going to take a few generations to get the same cache as SLO.

Funny thing: I met a German physician who works in California now. His degree is from Humboldt University, an old and incredibly prestigious university in Berlin. He found it "funny" (provincial) that people so often register "Humboldt University" as "Humboldt State". One of these things is not like the other!

*cachet

Apparently SLO is L1, Pomona is L2, and Humboldt is L3

Every discerning musician knows that SLO stands for Super Lead Overdrive, the front half of the name of the finest guitar amplifier conceived in the modern era - the Soldano SLO100. Interestingly enough it hails from Seattle, not anywhere near central CA.

I occasionally hear people pronounce it out loud as "vah tech". But seeing it written "VA Tech" is even more bizarre.

Yeah I hear that on TV a lot also, but no one who has spent any time in the Harvard of the Blue Ridge would say it that way

As a fellow Hokie I'm just happy they aren't calling us Virginia Tech University.

It's just Headlinese, an evolution of earlier telegram style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_style

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headline#Headlinese

Per the convention, "Virginia" is shortened to its acronym VA. So although it's written "VA Tech" it's meant to be read aloud (or in your head) as "Virginia Tech."

I don't even know that much about the school but I read the headline as "Virginia based tech sector scientists"

VA tech does not have the most agreeable ring compared to the others you listed tho that's for sure.

Georgia Tech is pronounced 'gah tech' and its domain name is gatech.edu. That may be the origin of VT's abbreviation.

Never heard it pronounced that way in my life. Either "Tech" or "GT".

One of my friends who graduated from there a few decades ago calls it Vippy Soo.

Fellow Virginia Tech alumnus here. "VA Tech" is perfectly legible and unambiguous. "VT scientists" is straightforward to Americans, but not everyone in the world will know what "VT" is in this context. It could be Vermont scientists, or who knows what else.

Incidentally, the author is the wife of physicist Sean Carroll. She certainly knows how to abbreviate Virginia Tech, but Ars Technica's editors will want to influence the title to appeal to a global audience.

"VA Tech" is a reasonable balance between writing something unambiguous for a global audience, but short enough to be interesting. Nobody's going to be interested in an article titled "Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University scientists build a better fog harp."

Of course, you still need to read the article itself to find out what the heck is a "fog harp," and why we need a better one.

VA Tech is part of the Victoria & Albert Museum, right?

But seriously, I'm so glad to hear that Violent Assault Tech scientists have made the Fog Harp more efficient. Finally I can reliably surprise my victims! This truly is Value Added Tech, and in such high quality Vinyl Acetate that I'll never worry about Vaginal Atrophy again!

Poor Vermont, no one in America will think of them in this context!

For a moment I thought it was about the VA, like maybe this was a musical therapy tool for veterans or something.

Since the article is about VT scientists, not the school itself, the correct term is "Wahoos"

Go Hokies!

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