polytechnic university

Be aware that American English differs from British English. I believe that British English more commonly expresses it without the word 'The' as part of the phrase. In USA, not so much.

For example. A Brit might say "We had go to hospital" as opposed to saying "We had to got to the hospital."

Thanks.

But as far as I can tell, names for unis do not differ much, except informal names in the UK are similar to formal names in the US.

I think it really just depends on whether you are referring to a particular one. Then you would use its title. And some universities don't have "The" in the title.

examples:

I'm going to university next year. (non-specific about which)
I attend Glasgow University. (commonly-used title)
I'm going to Oxford (University). I've studied with The Open University.

Note: I wrote "commonly-used title" because its official title is probably The University of Glasgow, but that's not how it is referred to in ordinary speech. Compare and contrast, however, The University of the Third Age.

Thanks.

The thing I was referring to is a name: Polytechnic University.

When we use the short form, we don't use THE

eg She is studying with (why not AT in your example BTW?) PolyU.

How about the long form?

I think off the top of my head, universities that start with "
University" usually need a "The" before them.
I'm studying at the University of Chicago
I'm studying at the University of Massachusetts.
BUT I'm studying at UMass>
I'm studying at Harvard or Harvard University, not the Harvard University.
I"m studying at MIT, but I'm studing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\

If the school's name is Polytechnic University, we'd probably say "I'm studying at Polytchnic University", or "at Polytech" or even "at Tech" depending on what it's known as informally, but probably not "at the Polytchnic University".

To throw you off further, Toronto has Ryerson Polytechnical University.

We don't use Polytechnic here.

Location matters in a lot of the questions you've been asking. People in the U.K use one form. People in much of the rest of the English-speaking world use other forms.

My wife has a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages from them. She calls it "the OU".

It's a confused picture, isn't it, even if you discount the abbreviations.

It occurred to me that, as in



if the university takes the name of the city or area it's in (or a person's name), then you normally wouldn't use "The". Such as, York University, Edinburgh University, Bristol University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tulane, McGill.

If it does not, as in, for example, The Open University, then the converse applies. Usually.

In the case of The Open University, "the" is a part of the university's name, therefor it would be "she is studying at The Open University.