Syracuse, for instance. They used to be the Orangemen. Now they are the Orange. This is even dumber than if they had become the Oranges, and that would have involved a large citrus fruit mascot. The "Orange" is meaningless. I mean, did Holland complain?
Or, say, Dartmouth. I'm not saying they had to remain the Indians (which apparently they only ever were unofficially--see link in comment--"official" mascots are a pretty new thing), but I think they could have come up with something better than the "Big Green." Because that makes you look like you want to be Cornell (who are the Big Red), or at least that you have less imagination than they do. What about the Beerkegs?
On the score of stupid team names of the idiotic quasi-collective noun variety, we also have the Harvard Crimson. But at least they've been the Crimson for a long time. This is not as dumb as the Utah Jazz, which makes no sense at all. What about the Utah Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or something? (A comment notes that they used to be in New Orleans, so it makes sense. I knew this. You'll note that the Titans realized that "Tennessee Oilers" was stupid. And "Jazz" is a lousy name for a sports team anyway, whether or not it's relevant.)
Name your team something intelligible, meaningful, and plural, please. None of this post-modern placatory nonsense.
7 comments:
A lovely post with copious examples...and yet you ignore the most devious offender of all, the Stanford Cardinal. That's right. The Cardinal. Singular. Not plural, because calling them the Stanford Cardinals would have, oh, I don't know, made sense. Who was the brain child who came up with that one?
Czapka, that's not how you use "brain child"
Answer: there was an unofficial student poll for the Stanford mascot. The students proposed the weirdest things they could think of, because they're Stanford students. The thing which *won* the poll was the Stanford Thunderchickens, but the administration vetoed that and took the #2. This was the Stanford Cardinal. Singular because... they could.
Of course, this is completely anecdotal, but it was told to me by someone who was actually in the SF area around the time it supposedly happened.
Just FYI, the Jazz used to play for New Orleans but were sold and moved to Utah, keeping the original name.
Stanford Cardinal, singular not plural because it refers to the color not the bird.
Dartmouth's sports teams were never, in fact, the Indians, and the "Big Green" is not particularly new.
See below:
http://ask.dartmouth.edu/categories/stulife/19.html
I hear ya about the Jazz, but there is actually a better example that comes from one of the more popular teams in the league. That's right the L.A. Lakers? It makes NO sense being they came from the land of 10,000 lakes in Minnesota.
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