The importance of ‘The’

Florida State University decided to form a committee to look into re-branding the school’s official seals and logos last year.

The committee arrived at a decision to add “the” to the beginning of the university’s official name. “The Florida State University” will now appear on buttons, bumper stickers, flags and underwear. Sorry Noles fans, you’re going to have to throw out all of that obsolete gear.

Out of all 11 universities in the State University System, The Florida State University is clearly the real Florida university. You can’t argue with language.

Neal Burns, a professor of advertising at The University of Texas, said in an interview with the Flagler County News: “These (universities) were institutions conceived of … in what, the 12th century? The world is so different. What are we really doing here? There are more serious issues than names and logos.”

This editorial board couldn’t disagree more.

It was only until after Sean Combs started to refer to himself as Puff Daddy that he was able to earn respect among recording artists. He found that a further change to P. Diddy gained him even more admiration, and finally deleted the P. to arrive at Diddy, a name perfectly designed to convey the essence of the artist’s true musical talent.

The University of South Florida should follow in the footsteps of these marketing geniuses.

There are obvious problems with this, however. Affixing a definite article to the name of this prestigious university would provide us with a triumph over only a limited geographic area — South Florida.

But this could be easily rectified.

Though T-shirt designers might have to adjust the font size, The Great Honorable “Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings Like A Bee” Noble Highness University has a certain aesthetic flair that could really draw in the young folk.

You don’t walk tall among state universities simply by having stellar academics and one of the fastest-growing football programs in the nation — save that for praise from people who don’t care about keeping up appearances.

How else do you think The Joneses got so popular? They are, after all, The Joneses! Think of all of the other wonderful things with that noble prefix: The Bubonic Plague, The Great Chicago Fire, The Federal Reserve — the stuff of champions.

From now on, let’s call USF “The University.” Let us be judged not by the content of our character, but by the prestige elicited by our title’s capitalized article.