Many people think it's sexy to be referred to as "Ohio" and the powers that be thought about it enough to want that moniker. I get it and I even like it to some extent. I would like to know the history of the name and what we were referred to back in the day. I graduated in 1981 and I always heard us referred to as "Ohio U" or "OU". In some rare circumstances you would hear "Ohio University". What were we called in 1857? 1922, 1939, 1956....you get the idea.
In due diligence to defend itself from THE's lawsuit to prevent OHIO from using OHIO in its sporting logo, OHIO found references to Ohio University in the singular OHIO at the general university, athletic team and independent press levels dated into the 1800's.
Additionally, THE institutions such as The Lantern (student newspaper) and other official THE communications within its campus were found to refer to Ohio University in the singular "OHIO" as early as the uses by Ohio University cited above, into the 1800's.
Beyond that, THE was unable to find historic, singular references to THE as a singular "OHIO" in its university archives, communications or press, and could only find self-prescribed theft of the name OHIO for things such as Carmen Ohio, Ohio Stadium, Script Ohio, etc, etc. (essentially amounting to ritual theft due to their largesse that was guaranteed by Eagleson Bill passage in 1906, which provided legislated assurance that Ohio A&M would be the largest Ohio public university ad infinitum)
There were also historic documents found that date back to Alston Ellis that are contesting THE's theft of singular OHIO usage to then THE president William Oxley Thompson, as well as letters from Ellis to Ohio State Legislature to contest efforts of THE to change its name to University of Ohio. This was the height of THE attempting to formally steal the singular Ohio as its name. At the time, OHIO had been OHIO for one hundred and thirteen years. This dates to the 1910's.
With those findings, it was a fete accompli that the THE suit against OHIO had no merit, and if anything OHIO could have at the time pursued significant restrictions against THE for using the singular OHIO.
However, due to pressure being applied by the Ohio State Legislature once THE realized they opened Pandora's Box and were in trouble, Glidden chose not to pursue restrictions against THE using the singular OHIO in THE's traditionally stolen uses of Ohio, and actually agreed to significant protections FOR THE's continued use of the singular Ohio in their traditions. That is the historically factual, Cliff's Notes version of events.
Question: If people fraudulently stole your surname and then sued you from ever using it again, wouldn't you be pissed off?
And I wish people would stop claiming that it is jealousy driving most people's insistence on people calling OHIO OHIO, because it is simply nonsense. There are many good reasons to do so that do not remotely involve jealous motivations.
Last Edited: 8/25/2014 4:32:36 PM by D.A.