College Name Mistakes... looking to fix on Wikipedia
 

I've spent about a week correcting most of the instances of "John Hopkins University" across Wikipedia (there were about 4000 of them most from one book on Sharks used as a reference produced by "John Hopkins University Press")

So what's next?
I've looked for "University of William and Mary" and "Carnegie-Melon"

What other college name mistakes should I look for?

Extra credit for those who mispronounce Carnegie Mellon. It's Car-NAY-gee, not CARN-a-gee.

I remember when I was accepted to W&M - my parents were so thrilled that it was a college, not a university. Well, also that it was a full ride! ;)

The only other examples I can think is how many people confuse Stamford, Stanford, and almost any other school that starts with ST. Sorry that I'm not more help.

In real life, people confuse W&L, W&M, WashU, GW & like six others, but not so much on Wikipedia, so I'm not that much help there.

I went to Carnegie-Mellon.

Refering to the school we said CARN-uh-gee, referring to the Library between our campus and Pitt, we said the Car-NAY-gee Library...

There's probably some Standford out there. Dartmouth University.

"California University" will likely get you a lot of hits to episodes of 90210.

There are. An abundance.

I find myself always correcting people regarding the difference between Penn State and University of Pennsylvania.

The official abbreviation for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is UNC Charlotte. Not UNCC and not UNC-Charlotte. I don't know if they're on Wikipedia, but the local media uses them all the time and it drives my significant other (a marketing/branding nerd who works at UNC Charlotte) absolutely nuts.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania has nothing to do with Indiana University.....and California University of Pennsylvania has nothing to do with CA the state (or 90210).

Meanwhile, the official short form for The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is UNCG, not UNC Greensboro (or UNC-Greensboro or UNC-G). But for Carolina, it's UNC-CH (or, of course, just UNC).

Okay, I'll ask: Why? I mean, that's a lot of time involved.

General Responses...
 

"Standford University" has about 400 hits, so it is next. :)

"Dartmouth University" actually existed as a part of an effort to force "Dartmouth College" to be public. US Supreme Court got involved. But my guess is a good number of the hits are wrong. I'll take a look.

"California University" may get some hits to 90210. more likely would be google hits on pages with strings "attended University of Southern California, University of Texas", so may be too many false positives...

University of North Carolina Charlotte
The page starts "The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, also known as UNC Charlotte, UNCC, or Charlotte, ..." . While it would be inappropriate to delete UNCC because there are lots of people who use that albeit improperly, I think that *adding* what the formal abbreviation is (with reference to UNC Charlotte's marketing web page) would be appropriate.

As for why? If I saw it in a paper encyclopedia, I'd write the company. Since it is Wikipedia, I'd fix it myself. I live in the DC area and have worked with the students at that school (as well as others in DC/MD) so I've had to check it in my own work.

I've got a semi-automated tool, so it isn't quite so bad, but I've got to do each language separately with "John Hopkins University Press" showing up in references in languages that I didn't know *existed*, it was an adventure.

But it's CARN-a-gee Hall, not Car-NAY-gee Hall, right?

My ex-wife is from Cleveland. I still laugh at the story of the first time I drove to Cleveland to visit her during a college break. Carnegie Avenue is a major street there and she'd given me directions to meet her at a restaurant on that street.

Well, I found Carnegie Ave. ok, but had to call her and ask directions. Me: "Hey, I'm on Carnegie. Where is this Car-Nay-gee Avenue you're talking about??"

To this day, I can tell if someone is from Cleveland or not when I hear them pronouce "Car-Nay-gee/CARN-nay-gee." Every Clevelander I've ever heard pronounces it Car-NAY-gee Ave.

Personally, I'd assume that a school like UNC Charlotte or any other major university has someone monitoring its Wikipedia page, and that if they wanted it changed they would have already taken care of it. Correcting references elsewhere might be one thing, but I don't think I'd correct something like that in the page on UNC Charlotte itself.

Just my $0.02.

Many colleges and universities have people who correct this.

Just like many GLOs, companies, and (inter)national professional organizations have people who make corrections wherever necessary.

Yep. It's all about linguistics. I tend to say Car-Neh-Gee. And yes...that is how Clevelanders say it (although I'm not from there). :D

Through a Google search, I found a Facebook group called "Standford University students". There are over 2,000 members. When I clicked on the page, there was a giant seal with the correct spelling staring me in the face.

This makes me sad.

People misspell "Pittsburgh" all the time as "Pittsburg."

And I am always the annoying alum who asks for it be changed. A quick search on wikipedia for "University of Pittsburg" reveals about 60 results.

Yes "CARN-a-gee" Hall....

Well, that is part of the issue. By Wikipedia's Conflict of Issue rules, the people *least* appropriate to change the wikipedia page about UNC Charlotte are employees of UNC Charlotte. Though if you declare your conflict of interest, you can be OK. Preferred for an employee would be to edit the talk page with the preferred changes and have someone unrelated make the changes..

Not equating the two groups but, I wouldn't want the preferred people to keep the page about Westboro Baptist to be the members of the church...

Wikipedia has specific rules to try to limit this (Exxon-Mobil employees have a conflict of interest in editing the page about Exxon-Mobil). Does it happen anyway, yes. Can an author be banned for doing so, yes.

If you'd like to fix those, then go ahead. Or I can put in on my list. And there is a Pittsburg State University in Kansas, I wonder how often people spell that with an h.:)

You can always spot a native by how they pronounce Carnegie and IF they can pronounce Cuyahoga.

In Pittsburgh, you can tell a native by *either* properly pronouncing "Monongahela" *or* by giving up and saying "The Mon, the Al and the O". :)

But you're not talking about things like public perceptions of UNC Charlotte (or Westboro Baptist) or other matters about which insiders might lack objectivity or evenhandedness. You're talking about correcting the name of the institution in the article about the institution. If the entry doesn't bother UNC Charlotte, why should it bother anyone else?

And just to go a bit further on UNC Charlotte specifically, the Wiki entry on that school has the following as the first sentence:

That is accurate. Whether it's the school's preference or not, and whether it is how the school refers to itself or not, it is known by many as UNCC. In fact I'd hazard a guess that UNCC is how people in North Carolina are most likely to refer to the school. [ETA: On re-reading, I caught that you've basically already said this. Sorry.]

Much further down in the article this can be found:
UNC Charlotte's branding guidelines are cited for this statement.

So, it looks like they've got it covered.

This one is a little more understandable, though. There are many cities and towns named "Pittsburg" across the US. I actually camped out in Pittsburg, NH on senior prom weekend :)

Still, I understand the frustration!

I had a friend who refused to accept that my university was in Champaign, not Champagne.

FYI, the reason was Pittsburgh, PA has the H at the end is a tribute to the predominately Scots-Irish heritage of the founders. In the late 1800's, the post office tried to turn all city names ending in -burgh into the more Germanic -burg, and Pittsburgh, PA went along for a few years. Then those wild and crazy Scots-Irish got all feisty and demanded that they get their H back.

To my knowledge, it's the only city that demanded the H, yet even as I type this, I know that somebody will prove me wrong.

I have been known to yell at the television when some former jock says, "Mo-Non-Ga-HEE-La". It's like finger nails on the chalk board to me!

I've always heard "Mo-Non-Ga-HAY-La"....

Joe Namath is from Beaver Falls, Pa., and he pronounces it
"Mo-Non-Ga-HEE-La." If it's good enough for Joe Willy, it's good enough for me. :)

Of course, the Scots would have pronounced -burgh as "bərə/boro," not "burg." ;)

I'd love to hear *that* in the pronounciation of Pittsburgh. :)

And you are right on UNCC in terms of marking the formal abbreviation.

Joe went too far south for college and it made his brain explode.

I've seen/heard some really interesting spellings/pronunciations of Duquesne but considering PennDOT misspelled a road sign for it (!) I guess I shouldn't criticize. For the record, it's doo-kane. Also for the record, the City of Duquesne has nothing to do with Duquesne University and they are not in the same place.

Ha, what pronunciations have you heard?

For local reasons my Alpha Phi Omega chapter (Carnegie-Mellon) and the chapter at Duquesne University did *not* get along.

So even today, occasionally, even thought I know it is doo-kane, I'll say Doo-kwes-nee :)

What he said. Duquoise. Dooken. Doo Queen. They are endless.