--Yours Truly, in his 9/14/98 column.

This one was originally printed on September 8, 1998, shortly after President Sessoms, of Queens College, and President Schmeller, of Queensborough Community College, announced a proposal to merge the two colleges, forming the University at Queens.

Strictly as an aside, since the publication of this article, the administration has, indeed, taken to calling the proposed conglomerate the U @ Q. It's nice calling these things correctly.

The problem is prosody. "QC" sounds good. "UQ" does not. Consider, for a moment, the physical requirements for pronouncing each. For "Kyoo- See," you start with a "K" sound, and then purse your lips to produce the "yoo." A lot of tension is built up behind those pursed lips; tension that is dissipated upon the arrival of the "See." In fact, the "See" can hardly be pronounced without smiling, which ends the acronym on a decidedly positive note.

"UQ," on the other hand, just doesn’t work. Consider: You start with the "Yoo," which, as stated before, causes you to purse your lips in a way that’s not at all appealing, to my way of thinking. Then, with your lips still in that position, you merely raise the back of your tongue a bit for the "K" sound, and then lower it for the finishing "Yoo." Where "QC" has energy, "UQ" is monotonous. It has all the style and grace of a machine-gun burst.

Of course, "Queens University," or "QU" would be no better, especially if the last syllable were stressed. Imagine the dialogue with some heckler at, say, a Knights game: "Hey, what sort of college do you go to, anyway?" "Kyoo YOU!" No, that's just not the sort of attitude we'd want to encourage here. (Of course, now I can't help but wonder what on Earth they do at Fordham University, but let that pass.)

[After this hit the stands, a couple of friends pointed out that I should have written that at least we're not calling ourselves "Flushing University," being located as we are in Flushing, New York. I've been eating my heart out ever since.]

It is perhaps for this reason that the proposed college conglomerate has been dubbed "The University at Queens," which properly ought to be abbreviated not as "UQ," but as "The U at Q." That is, admittedly, a bit long for an abbreviation, but it's not bad. It's got rhythm. It's got swing. One can imagine it being chanted in a commercial with a nice jazz theme in the background, and one suspects that if Sessoms hasn't thought of this yet, he will pretty soon. Of course, for the print campaign, he'll want to use "The U @ Q," because, thanks to the Internet, anything with an "@" sign is hip, happening, and now.

I imagine some of you are saying to yourselves, "Look, Shmuel, this is all very nice, but what's in a name? Like, who cares if this institution of higher learning is called QC or UQ or even AFL-CIO, as long as we get a good education and equally good job prospects once we graduate?" And I'll reply by saying that AFL-CIO is actually a pretty cool acronym, and that it's really too bad that we've been beaten to it. And then, fearing for my life, I'll add that I'm skirting the issue because, as I write this column, our president has not yet enlightened us all as to his actual game plan. Like pretty much everyone else, I'm breathlessly waiting for the details, and he'd better give them soon, or I'll have to either inhale or pass out, which would explain why these black spots have--

[Editor's note: Shmuel is reported to be in stable condition, and will be back next week with his two cents on the U @ Q. Stay tuned.]