MU

Just about everyone in the Newfoundland blogosphere's jumped on Memorial University's name change. Owen's Mom, SkylarkD, Cove Blogger, Townie Bastard and Sure B'y have all had great and true things to say.  I particularly agree with Vicky's opinions on the subject, and that's not just because I'm married to her.  I had a wonderful time at MUN, exploring new ideas, meeting new people, starting karate and getting a damn good education into the bargain.  MUN is a good school and I don't understand why they have to re-invent themselves……

But that's really beside the point.  The true puzzle is why they've chosen MU as an abbreiviation.  In Japanese, the word means "nothingness" or "emptiness".  In Zen Buddhism, mu is essentially the state of enlightenment, of total acceptance of the world as it is, uncluttered by our own prejudgments of such concepts as good and evil, right and wrong, me and thee.  There's a neat little explanation here.  

Disclaimer.  I'm not a Japanese speaker, Zen expert, or anything else authoritative.  Feel free to correct me……..

Now, it's all well and good to say that an education at MU will get you enlightenment.  Take away the Zen connection though (not all that strong at MUN anyway), and you're left with a university aggressively promoting itself as being chock full of nuthin'.

Sounds rather like that situation some years ago in which an automaker was puzzled why the sales of its "Nova" model were so poor in Mexico and South America.   Someone eventually pointed out that in Spanish, "no va" pretty much means "it doesn't go."

Hmm.