# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/101 "2010-07-20T01:55:46Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > How do you identify cities that few people are likely to have heard of? We don’t need to because we don’t have many repeated names. > [@](#): > > Once that pattern is established, it becomes natural to use it for every city. Sure, I’m cognizant of the reasons why you do it, and understand the explanations given in this thread. Nevertheless, it still sounds weird to us. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/102 "2010-07-20T01:57:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > 30 years ago your American counterpart would have announced “I’m from Houston” and never have thought for a moment about whether that made any sense to you. And 30 years ago it may not have. Though \*\*\*40 \*\*\*years ago if he did any reading of newspapers or watching of TV news he may have recognized it as the place of Mission Control for all the Moon trips… …and maybe thought that it must be in Florida 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/103 "2010-07-20T02:19:56Z")
> [@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? I think the main reason is accidents (well, sort of) of history and geography. New York without the NY tag could mean the whole state. True, in most contexts outside of the state, people mean the city and not the state, but the habit has stuck. Los Angeles is probably known by name to every human being above the age of 7 today, but in the early years of mass media, it was a small California burg, so the appendage “Calif.” used to be necessary. Washington needs the appendage DC because there’s a state on the other side of the country with the same name. Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, a map of the area can be a study in geographic confusion, with multiple Vancouvers (in two countries), and even a Mount Vernon. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/104 "2010-07-20T02:19:57Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > We don’t need to because we don’t have many repeated names. You must have a puny little country. It’s not so much the repeated names but that there are just so damn many of them, and if one gives the province/state after the name of the town you’re conveying at least some information to people who’ve never heard of the place. Gorsnak, posting from Meadow Lake ---
**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 20, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/105 "2010-07-20T02:25:52Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > We don’t need to because we don’t have many repeated names. So any city, town, or village name from anywhere in the world could be reported without specification of where it is? You would recognize every single place name, not only in England, but also in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Spain, and every other place in the world? I consider myself relatively well informed, but even I admit to sometimes needing more information. But surely even the most well-informed Englishman doesn’t expect to know every single place name in England? That would be impressive; I can’t make that claim for the state I grew up in. If nothing else, how would you differentiate between what we Americans would refer to as “Hyderabad, India” and “Hyderabad, Pakistan”? ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/106 "2010-07-20T02:27:55Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > He didn’t realize that there was a state called Washington as well, and the national capital is usually placed in listes of states under District of Columbia to avoid confusion. I wondered if he really could’ve gotten all the way to the West Coast. A friend of mine who grew up in the DC area said that she had foreign tourists ask her how far it was to Seattle. Apparently they assumed that it must be a short jaunt. I’m not sure if this was a one-time occurrence or if it happened regularly, but I’m sure that I’ve seen people on the SDMB admit to being unaware that there are two Washingtons in the US and that they are thousands of miles apart from each other. Honestly, it’s not something that’s a big deal and I wouldn’t necessarily expect someone to know that if they live in another country, but if you’re actually visiting DC and think “hey, I’ll visit Seattle, too, that’s in Washington also!” wouldn’t you sit down and google it to see how far away it is, so you can plan accordingly? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/107 "2010-07-20T02:37:38Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The SiL comes from [Indiana PA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana,_PA) I know Indiana. Hometown of actor Jimmy Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/108 "2010-07-20T02:54:59Z")
Some Americans have learned the hard way not to take anything for granted. As a result, we get the movie establishing shot with the helicopter flying in over Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, and the Tuileries, with the Eiffel Tower in the background—and the supertitle reads **Paris, France.** ---
**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 20, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/109 "2010-07-20T03:00:41Z")
> [@AWB](#): > > There is, however, a [University of the District of Columbia](http://www.udc.edu/), locally referred to as UDC. I see. But the wife’s cousins were definitely thinking of the U of Washington in Seattle, which they must have thought was an area or suburb of the capital. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/110 "2010-07-20T08:21:11Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > So any city, town, or village name from anywhere in the world could be reported without specification of where it is? You would recognize every single place name, not only in England, but also in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Spain, and every other place in the world? No, but we don’t specify the province/county/whatever-intermediate-level-of-government except in very specific cases (see below). And if we’re from a place that we don’t expect people to have heard about, we just name the nearest “knowable” place. I don’t usually tell people that my house is in “Aoiz”, I tell them it’s “in a village near Pamplona”. Do I say “Pamplona, Navarra”? Nope. And if I was specifying which of the Pamplonas do I mean, I’d specify the country, not the province: there are no other Pamplonas (no other Aoiz, for that matter) in Spain. Some village names do repeat, but they often have an appendix. Villanueva de la Serena is not the same as Villanueva, but there are several Villanuevas so if you’re speaking about one you do specify. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/111 "2010-07-20T10:19:27Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > So any city, town, or village name from anywhere in the world could be reported without specification of where it is? You would recognize every single place name, not only in England, but also in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Spain, and every other place in the world? No, we might describe it’s location if necessary. “Near Manchester”, “just outside London” or what-have-you. > [@](#): > > If nothing else, how would you differentiate between what we Americans would refer to as “Hyderabad, India” and “Hyderabad, Pakistan”? Well, we wouldn’t be likely to have heard of either. So if someone was refering to the former, I guess he might say “Hyderabad, a town in India”. It’s just a different way of doing the same thing. People from different places phrase things differently, and it sounds odd to those not from that place. If I was talking about an American town, the same thing would apply. I’d either just say “Houston” if it was the Houston that everyone would assume it was. If it were another Houston, I’d probably say “Houston, but not the one you’re thinking of” or something, and clarify if asked. If I were talking about a town nobody had heard of, I’m not sure what I’d say as it’s never come up, but I think I’d say “Smallville, you probably haven’t heard of it but it’s somewhere down South in America” and further clarify if asked. You’ve basically developed a “shorthand” version of that. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/112 "2010-07-20T12:49:30Z")
> [@TurboNuke](#): > > Yeah, sorry saying it’s common isn’t correct. > > Actually, here it’s called the City. Say that to an Englishman, and he’ll think you mean [The City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London) I don’t mind Americans adding the state to the city name at all, in fact I find it helpful. What I find unhelpful is the tagging of the abbreviated State name (OH, NV, whatever). Most of those mean nothing to me whatsoever. About the only ones I would recognise would be DC and CA. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/113 "2010-07-20T12:56:15Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > No, we might describe it’s location if necessary. “Near Manchester”, “just outside London” or what-have-you. Well, you might. Or you might say ‘King’s Lynn, Norfolk’. (or is it Suffolk? Bad example). I don’t think it’s fair to say we ‘never’ say the county after the town. Those automatic address forms online get on my nerves as they won’t accept an omission in the ‘county’ box. So I frequently end up putting London, London. Yes yes, I know it’s Greater London, but the drop down lists don’t often give that option. ---
**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 20, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/114 "2010-07-20T13:05:23Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Say that to an Englishman, and he’ll think you mean [The City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London) You wouldn’t have to get very far from New York City for this usage to become strange. There aren’t many people in Philadelphia, Boston, or Buffalo referring to New York as “the City.” > [@](#): > > What I find unhelpful is the tagging of the abbreviated State name (OH, NV, whatever). Most of those mean nothing to me whatsoever. About the only ones I would recognise would be DC and CA. I really wish we’d just get rid of those abbreviations. > [@SanVito](#): > > Those automatic address forms online get on my nerves as they won’t accept an omission in the ‘county’ box. So I frequently end up putting London, London. Yes yes, I know it’s Greater London, but the drop down lists don’t often give that option. I wonder why the postal addresses weren’t left as Middlesex, Berkshire, etc. Isn’t it annoying to have your address change every time local government boundaries are adjusted? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/115 "2010-07-20T14:33:49Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Some Americans have learned the hard way not to take anything for granted. As a result, we get the movie establishing shot with the helicopter flying in over Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, and the Tuileries, with the Eiffel Tower in the background—and the supertitle reads **Paris, France.** Well, the helicopter could just be flying down the Vegas strip. Though the giant pyramid and sphynx should be a dead giveaway 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/116 "2010-07-20T14:39:58Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I wonder why the postal addresses weren’t left as Middlesex, Berkshire, etc. Isn’t it annoying to have your address change every time local government boundaries are adjusted? It was all part of some ‘big government’ boundary redrawing back in the 60s/70s, I suspect to better carve up the population/local government by density rather than land mass. I do think it’s a shame that many areas lost their historic roots. I’m originally from a place called Sutton Coldfield, which is quite posh and was in historic Warwickshire (Shakespeare’s county! Ra ra!). When the boundaries were redrawn, Sutton became a suburb of industrial Birmingham under the generic county name ‘West Midlands’. Forty years later and I still know people who write ‘Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire’. Mainly because they’re stuck up, mind. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/117 "2010-07-21T09:32:33Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > I don’t mind Americans adding the state to the city name at all, in fact I find it helpful. What I find unhelpful is the tagging of the abbreviated State name (OH, NV, whatever). Most of those mean nothing to me whatsoever. About the only ones I would recognise would be DC and CA. I would hope you can recognize NY, at the very least. I use them a lot, but they can be problematic. In fact, earlier in this very thread we had confusion between one of them and the usual abbrev for Los Angeles. And there’ve been occasions when I have been unsure whether a given CA meant California or Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/118 "2010-07-21T13:24:10Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I would hope you can recognize NY, at the very least. > > I use them a lot, but they can be problematic. In fact, earlier in this very thread we had confusion between one of them and the usual abbrev for Los Angeles. And there’ve been occasions when I have been unsure whether a given CA meant California or Canada. “He’s a M.P. from Ontario, CA” – Is he enforcing the U.S. U.C.M.J., or debating whether to pass the Canadian one? It’s a pleasant drive, down rural highways, of a little over an hour from Copenhagen to the Mexico city limits. You travel southwest, of course. Going southeast would get you to Poland in a scant two hours, and Russia is only a few miles distant. And from Russia it’s only another few miles north to Ohio. Or you can turn off and go through Rome to Verona, or backtrack to Florence. From Mexico, on the other hand, it’s a nice short run through Phoenix to Liverpool. (But to get from Liverpool to Manchester you need to go through Geneva.) This is all in upstate New York, of course. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/119 "2010-07-21T15:52:12Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I wonder why the postal addresses weren’t left as Middlesex, Berkshire, etc. Isn’t it annoying to have your address change every time local government boundaries are adjusted? [QUOTE=SanVito] It was all part of some ‘big government’ boundary redrawing back in the 60s/70s, I suspect to better carve up the population/local government by density rather than land mass. I do think it’s a shame that many areas lost their historic roots. I’m originally from a place called Sutton Coldfield, which is quite posh and was in historic Warwickshire (Shakespeare’s county! Ra ra!). When the boundaries were redrawn, Sutton became a suburb of industrial Birmingham under the generic county name ‘West Midlands’. Forty years later and I still know people who write ‘Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire’. Mainly because they’re stuck up, mind. [/QUOTE] But it’s much more complicated than that, as the postal addresses used by the Royal Mail occasionally ignore both the current boundaries and the pre-1974 ones. ([See this Wikipedia discussion page for a bitter argument about one notorious example of this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hampton_Court_Palace/Archive_1#Location_of_the_Palace).) It all depends on where your mail gets delivered from. The Royal Mail’s usual argument is that they ignore the county anyway, just so long as the address on the item includes the postcode (zipcode). ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975/120 "2010-07-21T18:03:01Z")
**not\_alice** , you asked if people knew which state Kansas City was in. Whenever I tell people I live near Kansas City, I am just establishing that I live somewhere in the middle of the USA. However, I will then be asked, “Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Kansas?” The thing is, there really isn’t that much of a distinction, geographically. The cities are right next door to each other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-new-york/546975.md?page=7)