# New York, New York. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975 "2010-07-17T00:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/21 "2010-07-17T01:52:32Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > That said, when I listen to shortwave, it still sounds odd to me when foreign stations called it Chicago, USA or Philadelphia, The United States or even Kansas City, USA. I’m so used to the qualifer being a state and not the nation. _Time_ magazine – at least the Asian or international edition – used to do this in the Letters section, and it annoyed me no end. They’ve since begun identifying the state along with the country. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/22 "2010-07-17T01:53:56Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > We do it a fair amount in Canada too, though not as much as in the US (we probably say “Toronto, Ontario” less than Americans say “Chicago, Illinois,” but substantially more than, say, Germans say “Dresden, Saxony”). I imagine it’s for two reasons: > > 1. a very strong federalist tradition, combined with > 2. obligatorily writing the city and province/state/territory on addresses. (It’s always “New York NY” or “Toronto ON” and so forth, which it rarely is in other countries – you don’t write “Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône” or “Madrid, Provincia de Madrid”, you just write Paris or Madrid.) > > It’s a quirk of North American speech. We probably say “Paris, France” and “London, England” and “Tokyo, Japan” more than other English-speakers and speakers of other languages do. Opinion Warning! It isn’t that it’s incorrect, but I find it grating when someone says “Canadian City, Canada” rather than “Canadian City, Province”, i. e. Niagara Falls, Canada rather than Niagara Falls, Ontario. In the case of the USA, “Springfield, USA” tells me nothing about where someone is from. Likewise “Portland”, “Lincoln”, “Jefferson”, etc., etc. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/23 "2010-07-17T01:57:10Z")
I think that **RealityChuck** has the right idea: When writing mailing addresses, the state is always included, so it kind of sticks as part of the city’s name. There used to be a lot of advertising that called for people to write to so-and-so in “New York, New York” back in the 60s, it’s got a kind of catchy rhythm. That said, the Associated Press style has a specific listing of 30 cities that stand alone in datelines and text. All other cities need a state. Here are the 30: Atlanta Detroit Minneapolis Salt Lake City Baltimore Honolulu New Orleans San Antonio Boston Houston New York San Diego Chicago Indianapolis Oklahoma City San Francisco Cincinnati Las Vegas Philadelphia Seattle Cleveland Los Angeles Phoenix Washington Dallas Miami Pittsburgh Denver Milwaukee St. Louis There is also a list of cities outside the U.S. for which a country specifier is not needed, but I can’t find it at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/24 "2010-07-17T02:04:56Z")
I’ve traveled all around the world and never seen this. I really question the initial assumption. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/25 "2010-07-17T02:06:59Z")
I for one certainly prefer TOO much info rather than too little. I’ve lost count of how many times somebody told me that they are from XZY and I have no fricking clue what state it is even in, much less what part. My SO is even worse. She often talks about a town she lived in that is basically a suburb of a bigger town. Not only is it a town most people havent heard of, she doesnt even tell em the state either. Whenever she tells em about it, folks are like “where is that?”. She then tells them its just outside of ABC, at which point they go “ohhh”. Just fracking tell em “when I lived in ABC” even if it technically isnt correct! ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/26 "2010-07-17T02:10:49Z")
It’s common for people to say New York, New York because if you just say New York it might mean New York state. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/27 "2010-07-17T02:19:31Z")
> [@TurboNuke](#): > > It’s common for people to say New York, New York because if you just say New York it might mean New York state. It isn’t here. Where do you assert is this common? As I’ve said, in my experience, those from New York City say they’re from Brooklyn, or Queens, or whatever, or occasionally just “New York”. Those from elsewhere in New York State say they’re from City X (e.g. Albany, Utica), “upstate New York”, or occasionally just “New York”. I have literally never heard anyone identify their hometown as “New York, New York” in conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/28 "2010-07-17T02:21:13Z")
I was just about to post what **TurboNuke** said. Especially in the States, someone might say “I’m from New York” and then have to qualify it with “Buffalo, not New York City” as they’re almost 300 miles (~470km) apart. ETA after **BorgHunter’s** post: I’m in Phoenix (no qualifying state needed per upthread) and I spend most of my day on the phone talking to people around the country. I’ve run into this twice this week which is why (I guess) it was fresh in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/29 "2010-07-17T02:28:37Z")
Man, that’s weird. Excessive redundancy is not a trait I would generally associate with New Yorkers, yet a non-trivial number of people have reported this weird “New York, New York” nonsense. I guess there are a lot of wannabe Sinatras out there. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/30 "2010-07-17T02:40:10Z")
I say “Houston, Texas” when I’m speaking with foreigners. I assume people have not heard of Houston, but probably have heard of Texas. So this way they have an idea of where I’m from than if I just said Houston. I really don’t have a clue what the fourth largest cities are in most other big countries. I wouldn’t know that Shenzhen is a city in China. I wouldn’t know that Fortaleza or Salvador is a city in Brasil. I wouldn’t know that Nagoya is in Japan. I wouldn’t know that Nizhny Novgorod was in Russia. Ect. Ect. Ect. I mean, I could probably figure it out, but I didn’t know this really until I just looked them up. So if someone said, Hi, I’m from Fortaleza, I wouldn’t know where they are from. It’s bigger than the cities of San Francisco, Vienna, and Helsinki that you used in your example. Maybe it depends on how famous a city is. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/31 "2010-07-17T02:44:54Z")
GARY, Indiana Gary, IN-diana, Gary, Indi-ANA Not New York, Paree, or Nome.\* - Yes, I know, it’s a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/32 "2010-07-17T02:57:30Z")
I would personally want someone to say “New York, New York” or “New York City” because “New York” alone tells me nothing. I would assume they mean the state because that’s obviously correct, but the city could be anywhere. I suspect people say the “long” name to foreigners more than they would in the US just to give as much information as possible. I don’t know why people would add the state to L.A. or Houston, but if it weren’t one of the few largest cities, I would feel a little strange only naming the city, as if I’m the dumb American who expects everyone to know where I’m talking about. Of course, if there were any confusion, I’d know to just speak louder and get angry until they understood. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/33 "2010-07-17T02:58:56Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I’ve traveled all around the world and never seen this. I really question the initial assumption. The OP is talking about _Americans_ having this habit. Not people around the world in general. And yes, I think we (Americans) do this a lot. > [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](#): > > I just started working with someone who is from “Oklahoma city, Oklahoma”. but I’ve also met several people who tell me they are from “New York, New York” or “Houston, Texas” or “Fort Lauderdale, Florida” etc. > > It seems that they think I’ve never seen an atlas. We’re not always sure which of our cities you’re familiar with. New York is pretty obvious, of course, and I suppose the riddle of where Oklahoma City is to be found can be puzzled out without much mental strain. But, I wouldn’t have guessed that you (an Englishman?) would necessarily recognize Fort Lauderdale, unless you just love poring through your atlas. The city is fairly well known here, but doesn’t normally make big national or international news. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/34 "2010-07-17T02:59:16Z")
> [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](#): > > Why do Americans always refer to cities by both their name and the state (or country) they are located in? > > Is there more than one New York? more than one Los Angeles? more than one San Francisco? more than one Helsinki, Moscow, Vienna or Paris? Yes, there’s more than one Paris. There’s the one in France, one in IL, one in ME…There’s a Vienna in VA. And a Moscow in Idaho. Let’s play a game with just US cities this time. I say “Portland.” Think fast, where’s that? Nope, not Oregon. I meant the one just north of me in Maine. How about Rochester? Do I mean the one in NY, or NH? Or Dover - NH, MA, OH, DL? How are you supposed to know any of these, or the thousands of other places with duplicate names, if we don’t tell you which one we mean? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/35 "2010-07-17T03:19:42Z")
Within the United States, it’s pretty much necessary when you’re talking about any place that’s not within that top 30 or so cities. Now of course we don’t specify when we’re talking to someone who already knows very well which one they mean. But we do specify when we are talking to someone who isn’t likely to be familiar with our specific locality. From there, it just becomes habit to use that form, even for larger cities. Anyway, why take the chance of miscommunication? For many Americans, the city-state combination just feels like it is the “formal” name of the place and so it’s a habit to use it with people from other places. We go ahead and expand that to places outside the United States as well. “Paris, France,” and “London, England,” sound perfectly natural to us, although we probably wouldn’t say it if there were absolutely no chance of ambiguity. If we’re in France talking to a Frenchman, then it would probably just be “Paris.” Or if all participants in a conversation are working for a company that has an office in Paris, France, we probably wouldn’t specify either. But if there’s no other contextual cues, it wouldn’t necessarily be strange (depending on other social and cultural cues) to say “I’m going to Paris, France, this summer” because there might not be any other contextual information that would make just “Paris” unambiguous. And there very well might be a “Paris” not to far from where you’re standing anyway. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > As a rule of thumb, if a city has a major league sports team, you don’t specify the state, even if there could be confusion (e.g., Portland means Oregon, not Maine). In a case where there are two cities with the same name, the bigger one can go without the state designation, while the smaller one gets it (e.g., Portland vs. Portland, ME), unless one city is nearer to you than the other (if you live in Maine, Portland is Maine, while Portland, OR, is the other city). I don’t know whose rule of thumb this is, but it’s not one used by American newspapers. AP style requires you to specify “Portland, Ore.” or “Portland, Maine.” (AP style also doesn’t use those ugly two-capital postal abbreviations, which in my view should be restricted to postal use. And in international fora like this message board, I think it’s better to avoid abbreviations altogether.) Same with Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. (The majority of Americans would have no idea which of those pairs is the larger one, anyway, I think. I’m sure a significant proportion have no idea whether the major league sports teams are on the Kansas or Missouri side of the border.) ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/36 "2010-07-17T05:01:17Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > It isn’t here. Where do you assert is this common? As I’ve said, in my experience, those from New York City say they’re from Brooklyn, or Queens, or whatever, or occasionally just “New York”. Those from elsewhere in New York State say they’re from City X (e.g. Albany, Utica), “upstate New York”, or occasionally just “New York”. I have literally never heard anyone identify their hometown as “New York, New York” in conversation. Yeah, sorry saying it’s common isn’t correct. Actually, here it’s called the City. ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/37 "2010-07-17T06:15:10Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > Opinion Warning! > > It isn’t that it’s incorrect, but I find it grating when someone says “Canadian City, Canada” rather than “Canadian City, Province”, i. e. Niagara Falls, Canada rather than Niagara Falls, Ontario. > > In the case of the USA, “Springfield, USA” tells me nothing about where someone is from. Likewise “Portland”, “Lincoln”, “Jefferson”, etc., etc. Hijacked to say, this is a major pet peeve for me too. American game shows are the worst: “Here’s our contestants: Louis from Albany, New York; Charles from Miami, Florida; and Anne from Victoria, Canada.” You’d think the announcer would add the province name, at least for consistency’s sake. And yes, it is a good idea to include the Canadian province along with the city name. Saints and royalty feature prominently in our toponyms, and there’s only so many to go around. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/38 "2010-07-17T08:12:43Z")
Just found this in the “what does desalinised water taste like?” thread; “Worst water I have ever drank was in Huron, SD. Water here in Bogota, Colombia is very good.” Would anyone here have been confused if the guy just said Bogota? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/39 "2010-07-17T08:17:09Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Yes, there’s more than one Paris. There’s the one in France, one in IL, one in ME…There’s a Vienna in VA. And a Moscow in Idaho. > Let’s play a game with just US cities this time. I say “Portland.” Think fast, where’s that? > > Nope, not Oregon. I meant the one just north of me in Maine. How about Rochester? Do I mean the one in NY, or NH? Or Dover - NH, MA, OH, DL? How are you supposed to know any of these, or the thousands of other places with duplicate names, if we don’t tell you which one we mean? Ok, my turn. I say “Los Angeles.” Think fast, where’s that? Correct, it’s in California as pretty much everyone on the planet knows. It needs no further explanation. This is the point I was trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/40 "2010-07-17T08:17:45Z")
> [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](#): > > Just found this in the “what does desalinised water taste like?” thread; > “Worst water I have ever drank was in Huron, SD. Water here in Bogota, Colombia is very good.” > > Would anyone here have been confused if the guy just said Bogota? There is a Bogota in New Jersey, in fact. Although absent any other context I am sure most people would assume Bogota means the capital of Colombia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975.md?page=3)