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.
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.
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.
I’ve traveled all around the world and never seen this.
I really question the initial assumption.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
GARY, Indiana
Gary, IN-diana,
Gary, Indi-ANA
Not New York, Paree, or Nome.*
- Yes, I know, it’s a joke.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.)
Yeah, sorry saying it’s common isn’t correct.
Actually, here it’s called the City.
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.
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?
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.
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.