Walking onto campus on my first day of university as a young, naive first-year, I thought I was ready to take on anything UBC could throw at me. But when I strutted past the old, seasoned students and looked up at the expanse of the Nest, something caught my eye that would fill my days with sleepless nights and uncounted sheep: The Ubyssey written in sticky notes pasted on a window. “Ha,” I thought to myself, “The Odyssey. That's funny.”
I was satisfied with this initiation into intellectual (think Bill Nye meets Batman meets Megamind) society by way of basic literary puns until I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by the metaphorical (and physical) wall of the Nest.
How the fuck do you pronounce that? The you-bussy? The oo-bessy? The yodel-lay-hee-hoo? I let it go. I wasn't about to let this insignificant annoyance ruin my day. I didn't even know what The Eucalyptus did. It didn’t matter.
But every time I exited the bus loop and made my way to campus, The Uber Eats sign caught my eye, taunting me from behind the window. What could it mean?
After a week of yelling at shampoo bottles and crying in rooftop gardens to cope with the traumatic uncertainty left by the sticky notes, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I asked other students what they thought. I anticipated strong, intellectual (think Kurt from Glee) musings on the pronunciation. But the first student I spoke to thought the pronunciation was you-bye-sigh as if they lived in Australia and rode kangaroos. I didn’t even let them finish before leaving to find someone else.
Though I was no closer to an answer, I learned that my confusion was shared by many other students. I was exposed to pronunciations ranging from you-bee-see and oo-bee-say to yung-money and your-mom.
I began to realize how unjust this was — no one could give me a straight answer for how to pronounce The Uterus.
The last student I met let me know that someone from The Utility Belt had already done what I was doing, running around asking people for their pronunciations of The Umbilical and giving them the answers they desperately sought. I was appalled. Where was this guide? Why hadn’t I seen it? Could what the student said really be true?
I opened my laptop and searched for The Eureka only to find naked men in bathtubs, listings for palette wood and raccoon blogs. Nevertheless, I persisted. Eventually, I scrolled far enough to find their website.
A mere six hours later, the page loaded, and the first thing I saw was not a video, but an article written by the editors. Was The Uge Bussy some kind of newspaper?
My eyes widened as I scanned the article to find a detailed guide on pronouncing The Ubyssey. I fell to my knees. It couldn’t be. It’s so stupid. Surely, they can’t be serious?
Blog is The Ubyssey’s humour section. Don't take us too seriously.
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