Michigan has a truly bizarre two-digit postal abbreviation. It isn’t what you’d expect it to be or anything you’d automatically bring to mind. In fact, if you knew it, it would seem almost contradictory or ambiguous to you. Anyways, now that I have you wondering what it is, I won’t tell you right away. To get to that answer you will have to read the spoiler at the end of this post.
But I have wondered for the longest time now: does having a strange, contradictory postal abbreviation hinder Michigan in any way. I mean, is there ever any times people or companies avoid sending stuff to Michigan, and thus avoid doing business with Michigan, because they can’t remember or don’t know its strange two-digit, recommended abbreviation? I don’t know if there have been any studies done. But if there haven’t, I welcome people’s personal views on the matter. And as long as we’re talking about it, how did Michigan get such a strange abbreviation? As I’ve said, if you saw it, you’d know if defies logic.
*And now the recommended abbreviation for Michigan… *
It’s the first two letters of the state name?! How could this be bizarre or hinder it in any way?
It’s exactly what I’d expect, just like MA for Massachusetts. It’s MO for Missouri and MS for Mississippi that might be considered odd, but certainly not bizarre.
Why is it odd? It’s the first two letters of the name of the state, which is very common for postal abbreviations, including those of all Michigan’s immediate neighbours (OHio, INdiana and WIsconsin). The only odd thing is that there are three other states starting with “Mi”, so they have to use other abbreviations.
Sorry if this is some sort of parody or joke that I’m not privy to (if so, a link of some sort might keep a few "WTF"s at bay), but I gotta ask:
Dude! What are you smoking? :dubious:
Give me some!
If you’re looking for some sort of serious answer, then I’d have to say that using something OTHER than the first two letters of the state’s name might be some sort of hinderance, but with Michigan, that’s quite obviously not the case.
I guess I should have made it clear the main reason I think it is an odd abbreviation is because there are so many other states that begin with M, I: Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri. It would seem to me for Michigan’s abbreviation to be nonambiguous, it should be something that couldn’t possibly be confused with some other state, like MG for example.
NU for Nunavut, MA for Massachusetts, NV for Nevada, ON for Ontario, BC for British Columbia… These seem fairly logical to me. (Canadian and US postal designators are compatible, all non-duplicates chosen from the same list, but Mexican ones aren’t.)
ME for Maine is a little less obvious, but that’s probably because MA was already taken.
It’s when they have to start assigning new designators from all the leftovers that it gets interesting. Supposing the seventy-third state to join the US is the State of West California and the only abbreviations left are things like KX, QV, MZ and FF…
Ya know, if anyone actually forgot if Michigan’s proper abbreviation was MI, MA, ME, MO, MN, or MG, they could always write MICHIGAN on the letter they are trying to send.
Perhaps you object because MI also stands for myocardial infarction? Or, maybe because it’s the first two letters in M.I.A.?
Being from Maine, I always found our state’s initials to be a little odd (plus, you get people telling you jokes like “I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to ME”, nyuk nyuk nyuk); but the idea that the mere thought of sending a package to a place with whacky initials like “em ee” would deter someone from even trying it seems pretty out there…almost as far out there as AK (ack!), or maybe HI (well “hi” back atcha!).
Huh! I always thought it was the first and fifth letters, just like Missouri and Massachusetts and Maine or Minnnesota or Misissippi. You learn something new every day.
Maine always was ME…back in the Good Old Days, before all this got damn two-letter state eye-dees and rock n’ roll music, you would spend your summer up in Bar Harbor, Me. And get chili in Cincinnati, Oh., and salmon in Astoria, Ore. Go rockclimbing in Boulder, Colo. Go to college in Cambridge, Mass., or New Haven, Conn. And go see movies from Hollywood, Calif.
You gotta wonder, when the old abbreviation for MA was Mass., why anybody felt a need to abbreviate Ohio to Oh (four letters for one, four letters for the other).
I could see a coupla Minnnesotans wondering about a new guy in town…
“Oh, hey dere, Bahb, who’s the fella over dere by the combine?”
“Oh, he’s from O-HI-oh.”
“Oh?”
“Yah, Oh.”
I think we’re missing the bigger picture here. Since the postal (ZIP) code also encodes state information, why bother even having a state abbreviation at all?
Nevertheless, I am compelled to address the OP. No, the supposed strangeness of Michigan’s abbreviation does not hinder it in any way, or at least no more than any other state’s abbreviation that uses the first two letters of the state’s name, or follows its traditional, historical abbreviation. No, it’s the poor, oppressed entities of AK, AZ, CT, HI, IA, KS, MN, ME, MT, NV, and TX that are clearly being hindered, and I call for the payment of reparations in the amount of $500 per resident family for each year since the postal abbreviation system was put in place. Who’s with me?
PA was in fairly common use even before the postal codes (although it may not have been as common as Penn and Penna).
I will concur with the OP to this limited extent: there was already a two-character state abbreviation “system”* in place prior to that of the Post Office that eliminated the “Does MI stand for MIchigan, MInnesota, MIssissippi, or MIssouri?” puzzle: small boats licensed in many states have used a two-letter state code at the beginning of the license number for years; Michigan’s was MC.
Having worked with order entry systems for many years, I would say that the abbreviation does cause confusion, but I doubt that it amounts to any real and measurable loss of business.
(I do not know whether there is actually a formal agreement among the states that regulated the codes or whether those states with a large number of boats to license simply worked it out among themselves.)
I’ll venture a guess that the OP thinks “MI” suggests doubt and uncertaintly becuase it is phonetically equal (or at least close) to the deeeeeeeep philisophical question “Am I?”
This is kinda like putting Descartes before the horseshit.
