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I like it because it adapted its image to its nickname. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art" is the museum's full name - embracing "The Met" formally is a nice, hum
by elliottkember 4y ago
I like it because it adapted its image to its nickname. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art" is the museum's full name - embracing "The Met" formally is a nice, humanizing touch.
- FredPret 4y agoAs a tourist, I prefer the full name. I never knew what "the Met" was until know. It clearly stands for Metropolitan. But Metropolitan what? Police? Works? The full name is much more accessible and less intimidating.
- bee_rider 4y agoSounds like a local nickname for a train line to me.
- pastor_bob 4y agoIt's interesting because there also are The Mets. So you have the Met and the Mets, but nobody familiar with both would ever think of the other when hearing either.
- GauntletWizard 4y agoThat would make for a great fundraising gala. The Mets at The Met
- bradknowles 4y agoBut where did they meet? Was it at the Met? "The Mets met at the Met". And what did they meet? Was it also the Met?
- readthenotes1 4y agoThey met on The Met
- smsm42 4y agoAnd who was on the first base?
- GauntletWizard 4y agoExactly.
- entropyie 4y agoIn Ireland the first thing that comes to mind is probably "the met office" which is our national weather / meteorological service. See http://met.ie http://met.ie
- xhkkffbf 4y agoIt confuses me. There's also the Metropolitan Opera, the Metropolitan Club, the Metropolitan Life Insurance company and probably a dozen more. At least the baseball team, the NY Mets, is plural.
- OJFord 4y agoAsk any British person what 'The Met' is and they'll say 'London police' (or similar). I doubt an American museum could ever change that, embracing something so generic is limiting for identity & brand awareness IMO.
- collegeburner 4y agoAsk anyone outside of Britain what "The Met" is and you'll hear about the museum. I don't think one very small country should be the primary blocker to their branding decisions.
- pacaro 4y agoCurious as to what your definition of very small is. The UK is above median land area for a country, #21 for population, #6 for gdp, it's principal island is the 9th largest. I mean, yes, the UK is not the same scale as the USA, China, India etc, but I'd put to you that it is not so very small
- munificent 4y agoEngland has about 2% of the area of the US, so from a US perspective, it's quite small.
- OJFord 4y agoDouble the population of Canada though. I agree we're small, much smaller than the USA by any metric, but surely we're talking about population rather than land mass here.
- munificent 4y agoThat's true, population matters more. As does wealth and cultural influence, both of which are hugely outsized in England's case.
- johnaspden 4y ago
- pclmulqdq 4y ago"The Met" is also the opera. "The Mets" is a sports team. It's pretty confusing.
- SilasX 4y agoSimilar frustration with Vegas: The have Caesar's Palace, which is a long walk from Caesar's Forum. And on top of that, Caesar's Palace also has a food court/shopping center inside it that they call ... The Forum. Facepalm.