There's something I have been wondering for a long time. I notice that many people, such as yourself, will type, "to uni". I was wondering if that is grammatically correct. I see it everywhere and not knowing drives me crazy. "Uni" stands for University correct? So I always thought it would be, "to an Uni".
Could someone (nicely) explain this to me?
In the US, we say "When I was in college..." not "When I was in a college..." I think "go to Uni" is the same. I'm not sure I can explain this well, but in usages such as these, "a/an" just isn't needed. We say "I graduated from high school in 19xx" not "I graduated from a high school..." "I was in junior high when John Lennon was killed," not "I was in a junior high..." etc, etc. I'm trying to think if this is just particular to schools, or there are other nouns used without "a/an" like this, and I can't think of anything else at the moment. But with schools, you definitely leave out the a/an. Cases where you could use a/an would be something like "I went to a high school in New Jersey." But you could also say "I went to high school in New Jersey." These sentences mean something slightly different, though. When you use "a" you are focusing on the particular high school, so you expect that the topic would be the high school itself. Like how big was the school, where it was located, what kind of courses it had, quality of teachers, etc. When you skip the "a," the focus is on "I," so in a paragraph beginning with "I went to high school in New Jersey," you would expect the speaker to talk about his/her experiences in high school, rather than the school itself. Like whether I liked or hated the school, what friends I had, etc.
Hope this made some sense.
