To complain about something trivial that is prevalent just now at this time of year?

[Salmotrutta]

The use of the word "Uni" as opposed to University.

It really bugs me.

It started around the time the first Australian soaps were shown back in the early 1980s (Neighbours etc.) because they use that term in Australia - apparently.

Nobody ever referred to it as "Uni" before that in the UK - it just annoys me and I always say University because Uni sounds daft.

Just my opinion of course.

I don't use "leccy" no - oddly enough autocorrect tried to change that to lecture

Maybe we will have students attending Leccys at Uni!

I'm very old Bakeoff

I'm with you on this one OP. I find "uni" really irritating. I know it's irrational but I can't help it.

You are completely correct in finding it annoying.

I recently started to get adverts for retirement villages on my FB page

Maybe it's because "uni" sounds so casual and easy. I worked very hard to get into "university", and I want those 5 syllables to reflect what an achievement it was. "Uni" makes it sound like a youth club!

in the early 1980s

If you continue to be annoyed by things because they were not common before the early 80s you're going to have a terrible time in your old age...

Telephone and omnibus only have three syllables, so it's understandable that university with five would get shortened.

Why? There are hundreds of thousands of three, four and five syllable words that we don't shorten. We don't, thank goodness, say "hospi" for hospital, "olly" for Olympics, "soli" for solicitor, "exi" for exhibition.

"Uni" makes it sound like a youth club!

Yes this may be at the heart of it. Given that the whole idea of going to university became such a ubiquitous thing for a while - it seemed like everyone went - even the most seemingly unlikely and uncouth.

It seemed to coincide with the proliferation of the polytechnic becoming a 'university' and the streets being filled with drunken youths, where I lived anyway.

That might be why I hate it so much. University used to be the domain of the intelligent and dedicated, and suddenly it was just another place to get shitfaced and not sort out your rubbish bins.

I'm in the 'don't-like-it-but-know-that's-irrational' camp.

I generally find myself irritated by abbreviations Corrie, for example, winds me up, too. In the interests of balance I have to admit to using 'phone, telly and exam, though.

I suppose I'm just old and crochety.

If you were proper posh you'd say 'up'
e.g.
"Is Jolyon taking Nanny and Jeeves when he goes up?"

Australians shorten everything, as has been said up thread.

And yes, we do shorten hospital to hozzy, (not always, only if it's something non-serious) and an exhibition is often an Expo, isn't it? (Although not an art exhibition, only a commerce one.) There is also pressie for present, footy for football (not soccer) and brekkie for breakfast.

I believe many British people do similar. Chrimbo for Christmas, and so on.

YANBU to be annoyed by it, though. I mean Chrimbo, really? Are you all five?

• I'm Scottish, attended Scottish University back in the day and nobody said Uni then! This was late 70s/early 80s.* Exactly the same here. Does that explain our haughty disdain for the word?

It was at its most irritating every time Kate said it in The Archers

I have never heard of anyone saying sammie for sandwich, per that list, Ego. It's a sanga, surely?

I was watching Friends a while back , the TV announcer said ep instead of episode .

Lol I work at a Uni and most all of my colleagues refer to it as that.

YABU ;)

I mean Chrimbo, really? Are you all five?

What's worse is grown adults counting "sleeps".

I knew a woman, whilst I was applying for university in Scotland (always university) who always called it Varsity...."oh Bathsheba, have you got your offers from a Varsity" yet....

It just always confused me.... I still refer to University

YABU, I actively prefer it.

But then I like MaccyDs as well, so what do I know.

I don't understand calling university "college"! Surely college is the one between school and uni?

(NB. as an abbreviation, I will use "university" the first time and "uni" afterwards in informal writing.)

Went to university in the 70s and have to say that I prefer the shorter version and wish it had been around then.

Two reasons I think - one was the memory of my mother laying down the law talking to my brother about what he had to do before going back to "yooneeveersitty" - God how she did draw it out! And it sounded like showing off - although it probably wasn't.

The second was, a lot of my friends went to college or poly and it just sounded like I was scoring a point if I always said university in full - I used to arrange sentences so I didn't have to say it at all. "I'm going back on Tuesday". "At Leeds it ...". "In lectures ..." etc.

I dare say it wouldn't matter now as lots of the polys and colleges have become universities.

Well I'm glad I'm not alone in my irritation of this particular shortening.

Other abbreviations don't bother me half as much

SanityClaus - the only time I ever hear people saying "Crimbo" is in a jokey way. I would avoid people who say "Crimbo" like the plague but rarely come across them anyway.

I would run away from Sarah Kennedy who used to be on Radio 2 - she cropped up on another thread - who used to refer to Sainsbugs and Hollibobs because she thought it was cute/funny/whatever.
Thankfully she got sacked left.