The 'U' in 'UML'

Last night the conference banquet was held for the MoDELS conference in Jamaica. The MoDELS conference changed it's name this year - it used to be known as the UML conference, and UML is still used in the byline. I'm the general chair for the conference this year, and Microsoft sponsored the banquet. As you know, Microsoft is arguing for domain specific languages, with UML playing a useful role in some circumstances within that approach. 

So I was mildly amused to see the title printed on the menu that interpreted the acronym 'UML' as 'Universal Modeling Language'. I also noticed that alongside the UML logo on the conference program, the acronym is expanded as 'United Modeling Language'. Having experienced OMG politics at first hand during the standardization process for UML 2.0, I find the latter interpretation particularly ironic.

This reminds me of a game I once played with colleagues in a quiet moment at an OMG meeting. It's surprising how many subsititutions for the letter 'U' one can come up with. Kept us going for a good 30 minutes.