Cities known by their initials

[Martini Enfield]

It's probably a safe assumption that almost everyone in the English speaking world also knows the city of Los Angeles as "LA".

Yet, I was thinking the other day, people don't generally refer to "SD" when they're talking about San Diego, or "LV" when they're talking about Las Vegas, for example.

But the city of Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia) is referred to as "KL" by both the locals and anyone who's been there more than once.

Which got me wondering - besides Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur, which cities are widely referred to in spoken conversation by their initials? There's got to be a few, surely...

[Nava]

Do airports calls count? Because then I can give you BIO (Bilbao), MAD (Madrid) and BCN (Barcelona; the most common of the three, perhaps because if you read the letters in Catalan they sound a lot like the full name does in Catalan).

The tiny town where my brother went to college is known by its initials, but as a rip on the bigger LA. Elea or eleadedegé is La Almunia (de Doña Godina), Eléi is the one in California.

[Martini Enfield]

Originally Posted by Nava

Do airports calls count?

No; I know they're reasonably well known amongst the travelling populace but not really what I was getting at in the OP.

[Nava]

No, I meant towns which are called by their calls by the native populace. Besaena is such a common nick for Barcelona that I've seen people get surprised to hear it was the airport's call.

[Edward The Head]

I would say most people say D.C. or District. I've also heard people call Kansas City K.C. Other then that I don't know of any off the top of my head.

[Martini Enfield]

Originally Posted by Nava

No, I meant towns which are called by their calls by the native populace. Besaena is such a common nick for Barcelona that I've seen people get surprised to hear it was the airport's call.

That's different then; sure, it'd count, but I suspect there'd be very few examples of it; especially since a lot of airport codes have nothing to do with the city's name.

[Iggy]

Flying from GT to NYC...

The locals here would know the GT is George Town, Cayman Islands though it may not well know to outsiders. I would guess most everyone would understand NYC.

[gatorslap]

SF and NYC would be obvious examples.

It's not a large city, but San Luis Obispo CA is referred to as SLO.

[Student Driver]

SLC for Salt Lake City. Not sure if natives use the term, but I do hear it from others.

[MrDibble]

Port Elizabeth in South Africa is usually just "PE"

Originally Posted by gatorslap

SF and NYC would be obvious examples.

I think a distinction can be drawn between cities where initials are often written versus spoken, as per the OP. Does anyone say "SF" rather than San Francisco (or 'Frisco. Or San Fran :P), or "NYC" rather than NooYawk? Because people do say LA and DC and KL and PE.

[friedo]

People do say NYC. Not sure about SF.

[Thudlow Boink]

How about KC?

Originally Posted by Martini Enfield

It's probably a safe assumption that almost everyone in the English speaking world also knows the city of Los Angeles as "LA".

Do they also refer to it as "LA" in the Spanish-speaking world?

[Telemark]

Lewiston-Auburn Maine is known as LA by most locals and many of us from away.

Provincetown, MA is universally called P-Town.

[stpauler]

I've heard the Twin Cities called MSP (Minneapolis-Saint Paul).

Kaiserslautern is referred to by a lot of Americans (US Army typically) as K-Town.

[friedo]

How about DFW for Dallas-Fort Worth?

[Quartz]

Originally Posted by Martini Enfield

But the city of Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia) is referred to as "KL" by both the locals and anyone who's been there more than once.

In a similar vein Kuala Belait is similarly known as KB.

[JKellyMap]

"Day effay" (D.F.) for Mexico City. Just like "D.C." for "Washington, D.C.", in this case referring to the "Distrito Federal".

So common that people from there are sometimes called de-efeños.

[Larry Mudd]

Toronto is often called "T.O." (Toronto, Ontario.)

[BobLibDem]

A lot of people say A-squared for Ann Arbor. A few but not many say EL for East Lansing.

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by friedo

People do say NYC. Not sure about SF.

Not anyone who lives there. In New York, it's just "The City."

[robardin]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Not anyone who lives there. In New York, it's just "The City."

True, but we do refer to several nearby cities by letter initials. Visiting Atlantic City is often referred to as "making a run to AC", and Washington, DC is often just "DC". (I'd be curious to find out if the locals there do so as well.)

Hey, AC/DC. You know, I never noticed that until I put the two together in the same sentence like that.

[friedo]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Not anyone who lives there. In New York, it's just "The City."

I live here. People say it.

[NoClueBoy]

OKC

Oklahoma City

Used by everyone* here as a mail abbreviation. Used in news and weather on TV and radio all the time. In conversation, it comes up as "The OKC" or as simply "The City."


*yes, everyone. Certain business, tax, or legal forms specific for Oklahoma even have the instructions "please do not use abbreviations such as OKC"

[TokyoBayer]

Originally Posted by Student Driver

SLC for Salt Lake City. Not sure if natives use the term, but I do hear it from others.

In letters / email, but never spoken. Spoken, it's always "Salt Lake."

[TokyoBayer]

To answer the question.

I was going to say here, but I guess it doesn't even go by its initial.

[BobLibDem]

Do Vietnamese refer to the former Saigon as HCMC? Or do they still just call it Saigon? I'm all for letting Saigons be Saigons.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Martini Enfield

It's probably a safe assumption that almost everyone in the English speaking world also knows the city of Los Angeles as "LA".

Yet, I was thinking the other day, people don't generally refer to "SD" when they're talking about San Diego, or "LV" when they're talking about Las Vegas, for example.

But the city of Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia) is referred to as "KL" by both the locals and anyone who's been there more than once.

Which got me wondering - besides Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur, which cities are widely referred to in spoken conversation by their initials? There's got to be a few, surely...

"The ATL" has been Atlanta, Ga for about 20 years. Somebody eventually made a movie with that as the title, about 4 Atlanta high school kids.

[Jack Batty]

If you're southern/central Maine, there's a better than average chance that if you hear someone mention "LA" they're talking about the twin-cities (and I use the term loosely) of Lewiston / Auburn.

[Filbert]

Another Malaysian one -Kota Kinabalu, commonly known as KK.

[twickster]

Originally Posted by BobLibDem

Do Vietnamese refer to the former Saigon as HCMC? Or do they still just call it Saigon? I'm all for letting Saigons be Saigons.

**groan**

[FordTaurusSHO94]

ATX = Austin, TX
LR = Little Rock, AR
NLR = North Little Rock, AR

[Sigmagirl]

The first time I went to New Orleans, I bought something and the sales clerk gave me a handwritten receipt. With the store's address she wrote "NOLA." I hadn't seen that before (hey, I was 21) and I was charmed. I'm sure it's pronounced like the woman's name, but I guess it counts.

[Shagnasty]

I never say LA. To me, it will always be good old El Pueblo Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula the way God intended.

[zweisamkeit]

One of Detroit's nicknames is "the D". I believe the origin is The Detroit Tigers logo, which is an Old English D. A play on this is "D-Town", which is also used.

One of the best examples of this usage is this musical masterpiece.

[snowthx]

I have heard people refer to Port Angeles, WA as PA.

Sacramento is sometimes called Sac.

[delphica]

Originally Posted by NoClueBoy

OKC

Oklahoma City

Used by everyone* here as a mail abbreviation. Used in news and weather on TV and radio all the time. In conversation, it comes up as "The OKC" or as simply "The City."


*yes, everyone. Certain business, tax, or legal forms specific for Oklahoma even have the instructions "please do not use abbreviations such as OKC"

I live in NYC (and I agree with friedo that people say En Why Cee, I say it on occasion), and I was tickled when first visiting with my in-laws in Oklahoma and hearing them call Oklahoma City "the City" because of course to me, "the City" means Manhattan.

And I also heard "OKC" a lot, but more without the "the," just "OKC." Maybe that is regional within OK. Or maybe I say "OKC" and my in-laws are too polite to correct me.

[UncleRojelio]

Before it was DFW, it used to just be 'Big D'.

Tangentially, Fort Worth was 'Cow Town'

[bordelond]

Originally Posted by Sigmagirl

The first time I went to New Orleans, I bought something and the sales clerk gave me a handwritten receipt. With the store's address she wrote "NOLA." I hadn't seen that before (hey, I was 21) and I was charmed. I'm sure it's pronounced like the woman's name, but I guess it counts.

"NOLA" is much more a spoken than written abbreviation for "New Orleans". What's interesting about "NOLA" is how recent it is -- it's not more than 20 years old as popular shorthand. "N.O." -- written, never spoken -- is quite old, of course.

At least for local mail deliveries, you can write the four letters "NOLA" in place of "New Orleans, LA". Given a valid ZIP code, the mail will get where it's going.

[Greg Charles]

Originally Posted by BobLibDem

Do Vietnamese refer to the former Saigon as HCMC? Or do they still just call it Saigon? I'm all for letting Saigons be Saigons.

Cute. To answer your question in the serious vein in which it clearly was not intended, they write it as TP.HCM for Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh, but the short way of saying it is Thành Phố.

Saigon (Sài Gòn) now means just the downtown area, also called District One. The airport code for HCMC is still SGN though.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally Posted by bordelond

At least for local mail deliveries, you can write the four letters "NOLA" in place of "New Orleans, LA". Given a valid ZIP code, the mail will get where it's going.

It's worth noting that with a valid ZIP code, you can leave the city and state out entirely and it will almost always get where it's going, local or not. A college friend verified this back in the late 80s by sending mail to himself at home from campus addressed merely with his name, street number and name, and ZIP code, and it was there in less than 2 days.

[Telemark]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

It's worth noting that with a valid ZIP code, you can leave the city and state out entirely and it will almost always get where it's going, local or not. A college friend verified this back in the late 80s by sending mail to himself at home from campus addressed merely with his name, street number and name, and ZIP code, and it was there in less than 2 days.

I've mailed postcards to a ZIP code, nothing else on the address, and they've gotten to the intended person. The recipient is a character in a very rural area, and the post office knows that anything out of the ordinary is probably for Nelson.

[gaffa]

Originally Posted by BobLibDem

A lot of people say A-squared for Ann Arbor.

Do they get slapped when they do that?

[robert_columbia]

AC - Atlantic City, NJ. I've heard this used on the East Coast.

Does anyone use OC to refer to the Ocean City in Maryland or NJ?

[willthekittensurvive?]

Johannesburg is called Jo-burg

[Dahnlor]

LA has a suburb called "Thousand Oaks", which locals often refer to as "T.O."

[TheBoltEater]

Many people in Southern California refer to Tijuana, Mexico as "TJ".

[Michael63129]

STL is often used for St. Louis

[redtail23]

Originally Posted by NoClueBoy

In conversation, it comes up as "The OKC" or as simply "The City."

Really? I've never ever heard "The OKC". "The City", "Oke City", and "OKC", yes.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by friedo

Not sure about SF.

I say "SF" for San Francisco all the time ( also "the City" ). I'm not quite a native, but I've been naturalized for a very long time . Never used NYC in conversation and I did live there for a bit and was born upstate.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by KneadToKnow

It's worth noting that with a valid ZIP code, you can leave the city and state out entirely and it will almost always get where it's going, local or not. A college friend verified this back in the late 80s by sending mail to himself at home from campus addressed merely with his name, street number and name, and ZIP code, and it was there in less than 2 days.

The city and state on a mailing label is, as you noted, irrelevant, because the zip code is what's used to route the mail. As a general rule:

1st digit signifies region. All your zip codes beginning with "3", for example, are in the Southeast US (GA, AL, and FL (IIRC)).
2nd digit signifies state within the region. "30" is GA (the state has other 2-digit prefixes, of course.)
3rd digit is for the Sectional Center Facility that handles the mail for that zip code. Usually, for big cities, the first 3 digits are all you need to identify what city the zip code is in. "300", for example, is Atlanta, GA and suburbs.
4th and 5th digit indicates the Post Office within the SCF. "30069" is Marietta, GA, a suburb of Atlanta.