Magdalen - Magdalene College

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Each of the two ancient Universities in the UK (Oxford and Cambridge) has a College dedicated to and named after Saint Mary Magdalene. Both are pronounced in the old-fashioned way, ‘MAUD-lin’, IPA: /ˈmɔːd lɪn/ - see the note at Magdalen - Magdalene. Although they say the name in the same way, they preserve jealously a difference in spelling: Magdalen College is part of Oxford University, and Magdalene College is at Cambridge.

It may help you to remember the distinction (if you want to) by thinking Magdalene College is at Cambridge. Neither Oxford nor its Magdalen have a final letter '-e-'.

See also Magdalen - Magdalene. You may, too, be interested in a similar pair of names used in the Universities of both Cambridge and Oxford - with subtle orthographical differences: see Queen's College - Queens' College.

The following limerick may amuse readers of AWE (both Oxford and Cambridge have colleges called Trinity):

A beauty, a perfect divinity
At twenty preserved her virginity.
The boys up at Magdalen[e]
Sure must have been dawdlin';
It wouldn't have happened at Trinity.