A POPULAR DEBATE GOING ON FOR many years concerns whether to pertain to the members of the WU-P community (Management, staff, faculty and students) as “Wesleyanians” or simply as “Wesleyans.”
 
“Wesleyans” argue that the word “Wesleyanian” is redundant in its application of the endonymic suffix –ian added to the already-suffixed proper noun Wesley. Case in point is Mr. Jerome Dayao’s article which appeared in the 2005-2006 edition of Genré magazine, in which he mentioned in passing the inappropriateness of the term “Wesleyanian,” among other redundancies in the English language. Others cite that all institutions around the world named after Wesley use the term “Wesleyan” instead of “Wesleyanian” when referring to its students and personnel.

On the other hand, “Wesleyanians” point out that since the term “Wesleyan” as a name of the institution becomes in itself a proper noun, the suffix -ian may be added when pertaining to the members of the institution. According to Prof. Ramon Valmonte of the College of Arts and Sciences “Wesleyanian” is used “probably to distinguish the students from the school. ‘Wesleyan’ (adj.) modifies/describes the school and ‘Wesleyanian’ (n.) identifies the students of the ‘Wesleyan school.’”
 
It could be said that “Wesleyanian” is a nonstandard word (just like “irregardless” and “subliminable”) which, because of being widely-used by many “Wesleyanians” for decades, can no longer be considered a new coinage but qualified itself as a part of WU-P’s regular vocabulary, the same when US President Warren Harding’s buzzword “normalcy” entered common usage.
 
The editor of your Updates leaves the matter open for discussion among the WU-P community. However, for this and other succeeding issues we will be using the term “Wesleyan” merely to obey one of the main pillars of journalism – brevity. Whenever the term “Wesleyan” is written it will be used in the same sense as “Wesleyanian.” It’s for you to decide or to debate which name suits more appropriately. Anyway, “a rose by any other name still smells as sweet.”
 
A Wesleyan, by any other name is still synonymous with achievement. ###