Re: American places
robert korfhage (korfhage@icarus.lis.pitt.edu)
Thu, 19 Jan 95 07:16:26 EST
The postal authorities here are strong on pushing the two-letter
abbreviations for our states, in a drive for automatic mail processing
and increased "postal efficiency." They don't think about how this
leaves people, including many Americans, puzzled about what the
abbreviations mean, or, the other way around, what the correct
abbreviation for a given state is. Strangely, the post office seems to
be getting less, not more, efficient! Usually the codes are fairly easy
to figure out if you have a list of states handy. Often they are the
first two letters, or the first and last letters of the name. States
with two-word names get the obvious initial abbreviation (NY = New
York). And a few abbreviations go back to fairly standard 'folk'
abbreviations. An example is MO for Missouri. But the whole thing can
be difficult without a full table.
GA, by the way, is Georgia.
Bob Korfhage
korfhage@lis.pitt.edu