neither of you addressed my point about self description or the official description of the school and the state what about the stance of the more than k alumni how many people have describe something that is their own it their own way before it can be accepted i concede that the term may be idiosyncratic but it is certainly not intended to obfuscate anything i urge you to find an example of the chief ever being called a mascot in an official capacity by the university or the state the term mascot may apply but as a secondary description to the preferred term i do not wish to exclude the term mascot simply to place it as secondary to the preferred term additionally i present other arguments chicago el is called so by the local population however outside of chicago most people would call the system a rapid transit system and later in the article it is in fact described as such in the opening paragraph clear preference is given to the local name even though consensus among the wider world community is that it is a rapid transit system what about chief osceola from fsu in that article he is described as a symbol there is zero mention of mascot i would argue that the performance of chief osceola is identical in spirit to the performance of chief illiniwek both are meant to pay reverence to american indian culture in fact chief illiniwek existed for years prior to chief osceola