like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

I think calling university "uni", which is now seemingly standard for anyone under 40 in the UK, came from Australian soaps.

― fetter, Monday, 14 November 2022 12:45 (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

No, I remember that from way back.

― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Monday, 14 November 2022 12:47 (six hours ago)

I'd never heard it anywhere until Neighbours circa 1988/89.

According to OED goes back to 1898.

Etymology: Shortened < university n. Compare Univ n.
colloquial (chiefly Australian and New Zealand).

= university n. 1. Also attributive and in other combinations.
1898 Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. (Red Page) The only classical idioms I have found..are rotter, i.e., an adept in learning anything; and panem agere, Sydney Uni. slang for ‘doing a loaf’.

There’s citations for it featuring in ‘the ABZ of Scouse’ in 1966 and in Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ in 1975, so had definitely reached UK before Neighbours.

i was at uni in 1987 and kids obsessively watched Neighbours in the union so i'm confused here

did Americans take Varsity with them and leave Uni behind?

I think it's an Australianism. I grew up in Australia so was acquainted with 'uni' but I went to university in the UK in the mid eighties and I'm pretty sure the term wasn't used. People said 'college'.

I think of 'uni' as a post-1990s UK development. No-one would have said it at the university I attended in the 1990s. It's pretty much Blair years and on, I would say ... synchronising perhaps with the amount of 'Uni' expansion under Blair.

The other thing that people would have said (and still would) instead of saying 'are you going in to the UNIVERSITY today?' would be ... just to name the actual university. That's why the abbreviation wasn't needed.

That might work if you're chatting in term time with your fellow students but the more general term (abbreviated or otherwise) is useful outside of those confines, e.g. 'the friends I made at uni are much better than you lot'.

I agree. But I don't recall the term being used, say 30 years ago.

tbh I have no recollection of which individual words I was using 30 years ago, it feels so natural to say now that it would seem surprising if i weren't using it then - but I have no evidence one way or the other.

I don't recall it not being used, and I feel like it would've been used, and I was there 87-90. But I am old and my memory is shot. An awful lot of students gathered in the Union to watch Neighbours every day so maybe the word had already arrived, idk

I wouldn't say it now either.

according to this graph the arrival of neighbours in the uk coincides with a precipitous drop in usage - in books, not necessarily a reflection of common speech:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=uni&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3

I first heard "uni" on Neighbours I think. but I've never heard anyone call university "college". thought that was a US thing.

i know it wasn't used *around me* when i was at "uni" (79-82) bcz it only started getting my hackles up way later -- i wd have been prickly earlier

but maybe my friends were just like "mark is weird abt this, don't say it round him or he'll post it to that stupid thread"

xp -- i *do* generally call university college but only bcz i don't want to say university or uni lol

What horror.

Today a coroner has ruled that 2-year-old Awaab Ishak died as a result of a severe respiratory condition caused due to prolonged exposure to mould in a home environment. Action to treat and prevent the mould was not taken. Awaab Ishak, from Rochdale, died in December 2020. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/tONlin3joR

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) November 15, 2022

Zac Goldsmith interviewed by (and tries to run away from) 11 year old girl:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/zac-goldsmith-cop27-confronted-climate-activist-egypt-b1039877.html

UK: closing arts orgs and opera houses.

Europe: this does sound nice.

"If successful, the scheme would be extended and probably rolled out to a wider age group, possibly from the age of 15 upwards."

This is just so brilliant, a new generation of creative people will be nurtured. & cultural institutions supported. A win-win!https://t.co/y4PzLzz1Pa

— Marijam Didžgalvytė (@marijamdid) November 15, 2022

won't need arts when tourists start flocking in to get an authentic look at what the 1850s were like

according to this graph the arrival of neighbours in the uk coincides with a precipitous drop in usage - in books, not necessarily a reflection of common speech:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=uni&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3🕸

Forgot the link

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+uni&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3

Did any of the characters in Neighbours actually go to uni though?

Can't imagine it was used enough to radically change the vocabulary of young people in the UK at the time.

Tom D is correct: university was definitely not a major feature of the programme NEIGHBOURS.

FWIW Alba's graph corroborates what I posited: the term picks up in late 1990s and gets very big in C21.

is this a radical change? i would not call it a radical change

toadfish studied law at nearby eden university ppl

http://perfectblend.net/neighbourhood/places-edenuni.htm

I remember Scott Robinson saying it but iirc Jane was the first Australian to graduate.

jason donovan call him by his name

Mark S: re radical change do you mean: the figures shown on the left of the graph?

I don't know what they refer to. Though I can see that use of the term rises.

no i just meant tom d using the word "radical" to describe students saying uni instead of university but no other changes

i imagine the figures on the n-grams are percentages of total usage of all (printed?) words in english, which isn't a wildly clarifying thing to measure against

the heterosexual Jason Donavan call him by his full name

Mike, Aka, Guy Pearce, is the one I remember who was going to "uni"

It wasn't just Neighbours tho. Some of those Home and Away kids probably went Away to uni. And where do you suppose The Young Doctors got their degrees from?

I agree. I feel that this was probably more of a feature of HOME & AWAY than of NEIGHBOURS.

Mike, Aka, Guy Pearce, is the one I remember who was going to "uni"

I think I agree. If you'd asked me (before this thread went down this wormhole) when 'uni' burst onto these shores, I'd have said it was something to do with Mike and Plain Jane Super Brain in the late 80s.

it looks like "uni" in the UK has outlived neighbours but for how long

thank you, Jason & Kylie, for enriching the Q&K’s English!

Especially For Uni
Uni Dream Will Do
Too Many Broken Education Systems In The World
and of course Better The Devil Uni

Can't get uni out of my head

I saw my all time fave early adopter abbreviation on here a few years ago from a US twitter pizza-post someone linked that used the very troubled cut off "za", lol I've been dying to use it irl

za is a great word but the opportunity will never arise irl

apart from during scrabble games

does calzino like calzone za? (mmm, I've seen it being used online but I agree it doesn't quite work)

I like a mexizano

DC not keen on ... Stephen Bush.

Clown Prince on unbeatable form, not even the FT's star 'political expert' Stephen 'Truss doesn't care about optics, polls don't matter except at elections' Bush can get close at the moment https://t.co/tFLclmreoY

— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) November 16, 2022

since first hearing this hot take on the World Service around 50 minutes ago i've seen umpteen liberal war fans repeating it. at least my suicidal ideation doesn't extend to the rest of humanity

🤯🤯🤯

It should not be controversial to say a population of 8 billion will have a grave impact on the climate | John Vidal https://t.co/nvugW43e3w

— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) November 15, 2022

Went up #lift109, the new “epic viewing experience” (lift) that rises above #BatterseaPowerStation’s tawdry sprawl. £20 buys 8 mins to look down upon what shouldve been 50% affordable homes: yet developers negotiated just 9%, offsite.
3000 families in Wandsworth await homes.
(⅓) pic.twitter.com/jr0ldF0PeI

— Tim Dunn (@MrTimDunn) November 16, 2022

This doesn't feel true but it's funny.

Soaring buy-to-let mortgage rates mean British landlords will see their profits slump to just £7 a year per property when they remortgage this year

https://t.co/gXxPAgKz5o

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 13, 2022