While in the doctor’s waiting room recently, there was a sports magazine that listed the top 400 or something sports cities in the United States. Most of the top ones were listed solely by city name: Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit. As the list went further down, you got to places like Gainesville, FL and College Park, MD. Now, I recognize that some city names are likely to be used in more than one state, and even Washington, DC must be mentioned with a further geographical distinction in general due to possible ambiguity. The lowest rank city without further identification was Honolulu.
But what sort of criteria is there to determine when you should list the state (or country) as opposed to just the city name? For instance, going by Wikipedia page titles, we have Toronto and Detroit but Topeka, KS and Boise, ID. Clearly some places are more internationally known, but there has to be some sort of line drawn. How does such a line get drawn? How does it differ based on your frame of reference? Is it an individual entity/editor call?
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On a similar note, I read an article on a Canadian newspaper website that mentioned something happening in “London”. Now, there is a fairly sizable city in Ontario called London, but obviously without further reference one would immediately assume London, England was meant. I was absolutely confused and could not determine which city was meant; it sorta sounded like local stuff, but there was not a single referent that I recognized that would indicate one way or the other.
If writing formally, you should include enough information in the intial mention of the city as to be unambigious. After that, a simple reference will be assumed to be talking about the same city.
Generally the form of “Place, State/Country” is an Americanism. In other countries you would simply say “London” and if there was an ambiguity something like the “the British capital London” or “The Canadian city of London”, not “London, England” .
This can actually be a problem in New England, since there are several names that are held by two towns in different states, but not far from each other. Concord, Salem, Manchester and Amherst (and probably some others) can refer to towns in either Mass or NH.
Yes, I suppose it’s all about that dreaded “style guide”. I guess I’m wondering more if there’s some really hard rule that goes into these sorts of things, and how that rule is supposed to change based on your local conditions. Certainly any Michigan reporter will assume his audience knows where Lansing and Chicago are, but a mid-Michigan reporter will have to be careful when discussing Atlanta or St. Louis (both somewhat decent size cities therein).
This is a very regional thing; every single place that is anywhere near a location that shares a name with a much larger and well-known counterpart. Is it truly something that every single publication develops on their own, or do generic style guides give some overarching rule?
I’m not sure what answer you want beyond what’s been given. There’s no Academy of English with enforcement powers over all writers. Newspapers and news magazines are very likely to follow the Associated Press style guide or have their own house style modeled closely on it. Book publishers often refer to the Chicago Manual of Style. But in the absence of a style guide, it really just comes down to the preference of the writer and/or editor.
A lot depends on context too. If I’m writing for a strictly local publication and I refer to the city or county of Orange with no further explanation, my readers will assume I mean the one in California so there’s no need to specify unless I mean something different. If I’m writing for a national or international readership, I better make it clear which Orange I mean.
Charlotte usually winds up being mentioned in threads like this, so I’ll go ahead and mention it.
Having grown up less than 100 miles from here, I still don’t understand how people confuse it with Charleston (South Carolina), Charleston (West Virginia), and Charlottesville (Virginia), but apparently it happens.
And maybe it’s just because of my IP address, but both Google Maps and Wikipedia send you straight to Charlotte, North Carolina, if you type in “Charlotte” so there can’t be too many other Charlottes.
In a similar way, it’s astounding how many newspapers put up websites with no indication of the physical city or state where they are located. Just the name of the paper at the top of the page – and there must be hundreds of them named “The Times” or “The Journal”!
Either through Google, or some online services that consolidate links to newspaper articles on specific subjects, I often follow a link to a page on a newspaper website. Not the home page, but one deep in their site. Then it’s often a real challenge to figure out just where this paper is from. Nothing on the page tells that. Sometimes you can make a guess from a geographic name in the story, but (like the OP notes) there are many city and county names that repeat in various locations.
Seems odd that the designers would leave this basic info off their website. Just an indication, I guess, of egocentric design. They think everyone will come to their website in the way they planned, through the homepage. Even though that’s used only in a minority of web accesses, nowadays.
I think the norms should be expanded to include “the geographical ignorance of the average reader” since there are a bunch of other cities I recognize without having a state name attached.
The edition I’m looking at is several years old and lists 30 American cities and 26 foriegn cities that stand alone. Since then, I know that San Jose and Charlotte (maybe also Sacramento) have been discussed for getting “stand alone” status, but I don’t know what the newest guide says. I think the problem with Charlotte is that there are at least eight other Charlottes in the U.S., plus Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands, plus a number of Canadian cities with Charlotte in their names. Columbus has the same problem, not to mention, of course, Springfield.
I find it odd when I listen to the shortwave and other nations will identify the cities of the USA. For instance they’ll says “Chicago, America.” Or “Philadelphia, United States”
It may have come about in this country because there really aren’t that many places that don’t need to be qualified for some reason. Considering a few of the largest or most significant cities we have–
New York - We have to tack on NY so it’s understoood we don’t mean New York State.
Los Angeles - Was tiny when national media came into existence, so tacking on “Calif.” got ingrained as a habit.
Chicago - One of the few that never really needed it.
Watching American television in Canada produces odd-sounding results too. “Welcome to <insert game show name of choice>! Here’s today’s contestants: Tina from Miami, Florida; Fred from Albany, New York; Lavinia from Seattle, Washington; and Murray from Cartier, Canada.” The province gets left right off, even if every state is specified.
Yes, we say, ‘city, province’ as well, except for a few biggies (Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton) or places with unique names (Saskatoon). We say ‘London, Ontario’ for example.