Date:  Sun, 4 Feb 1996 21:16:19 -0500

From:  Dennis Baron <debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Urbana-Champaign



>Larry is right, that the (recent) larger size of Champaign (founded as a

>breakaway from Urbana) probably dictates the C-U order, or it may have

>descended from the fact that the train station was in Champaign. (Maybe

>Dennis Baron can do some digging on this.) Prior to the building of the

>library building (which straddles the boundary line) and the old gym,

>all of the campus was on the Urbana side of the line. Bloomfield (and probably

>a majority of the present faculty) lived in Urbana, which definitely gives

>it priority for linguists.

>    Incidentally, one of my former colleagues there (who lives in Urbana),

>grows grapes and annually serves bottles of his "Urbana champagne".

>

>    --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu)



I haven't been following this thread, though I gather the subject is

irreversible binomials. I don't know that one theory can explain the order

of these phrases. It certainly hasn't anything to do with number of

syllables or logic.



Champaign - Urbana it is in common parlance, and has been for the 20+ years

I've been here; it's also C-U, and sometimes Shampoo Banana, but it remains

officially the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (acronymized as

UIUC). Of the linguists, the Kachrus, Zgusta, Jerry Morgan and Georgia

Green live in Urbana, while Hans Hock lives in Champaign. The late Henry

Kahane lived in Urbana, and I believe Rene still does. Peter Cole lived in

Urbana before he moved to Delaware.



Champaign may be bigger than Urbana now, but Urbana had the one ward that

went for McGovern.



Many irreversible binomials are in fact reversible:



ham and eggs > (green) eggs and ham

salt and pepper > pepper and salt in many instances. Name binomials

probably don't reverse as much, tho C-U/U-C is a good exception.



There was a usage debate once, I believe, over shoes and socks, the

argument being that socks should come first, since they're put on first.

Nonetheless, shoes and socks still sounds more natural to me, and Lynne,

I'm from New York.



Dennis Baron (which I still prefer to Baron Dennis)





Dennis Baron                    debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu

Department of English           office: 217-333-2392

University of Illinois              fax: 217-333-4321

608 S. Wright Street             home: 217-384-1683

Urbana, IL 61801