The Gank of the Week #10

The tenth edition is kind of special because it's #10, so this week's post is ganked From On High.

There's something I've been meaning to complain about for a while now. I'm not even sure what to call it, but, to quote a legal mind greater than my own, "I know it when I see it." The thing I'm talking about is the phenomenon of naming ordinary and unsophisticated things - usually buildings, institutions, and places - in a way that makes them sound extaordinary and unecessarily pretentious.

The most common manifestation of this the "at" syndrome. You've probably seen it in your very own state or community. It involves taking a name and adding to it the word "at", followed by a geographic location. So, for example, one would take the name"The Short Hills Mall" and turn it into "The Mall at Short Hills". This convention also quite commonly shows up in the names of housing developments and gated communities (I'd be willing to guess there is a swanky development known as something like "Lakeview at Boca Raton"). Why people feel that separating a place's name from its geographic location with an awkward sounding preposition connotes class or sophistication, I don't quite get. After all, don't pretentious types usually look down on those who say things like "where's the mall at" or "isn't that place at New Haven?"

Another strain of this faux fancy naming tendency is the "the" syndrome. This phenomenon shows up more frequently in the context of schools. So, for instance, chances are if you went to a public high school, it was called something along the lines of "Madison High School". If you went to a private school, however, the chances of the name being preceded by a superfluous "the" drastically increase. In that case, you probably went to "The Lawrenceville School" or "The Peck School", etc. etc. Personally speaking, I thought until I arrived at law school that I was going to Yale Law School. I was rudely awakened however, when I was reminded again and again by our illustrious dean that I was a proud student of THE Yale Law School.

The fact that people need to engage in this kind of superfluous "at"age and "the"ing has always irked me. It's a similar pet peeve to my disdain of over-using Old English/fake Old English spellings like "Towne Centre" and "Shoppes". I realize more and more, however, that these linguistic conventions are largely unavoidable, especially in the peer-set that I'm likely to find myself in once I graduate. So, I suppose it's about time I cave in and get used to the fancified names that so many seem intent on propagating. From now on, if people ask, I go to the Law School at Yale.

[Full disclosure: Abnu didn't go to Yale.]