“I dont get it. Whats the big deal about calling Ohio State THE Ohio State???”
Slippery slope thing. :) Next thing we know Ohio University will append their name to be “The Best Ohio University”.
Then schools will want to trademark “The Supreme”, “The Phenomenal” etc.
But what would be fun is if Univ of South Carolina went for the name “THE REAL USC”...LOL
How funny would it be if Oklahoma State started calling themselvees THE OSU?
Related to your jesting of the University of Southern California, years ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of Washington, USC was annoyed about people calling them Southern Cal so the SID sent out information about acceptable terms to call their athletic teams. One of the terms listed was “Women of Troy.” The student paper picked this up immediately and habitually referred to their football team as the Women of Troy. Kept it up for years, even though most people probably didn’t know about the origins of the practice. Might still be using the term, I don’t know.