This might be a slightly away from the OP, but I understand that people from the USA are in the habit of saying street names without the appropriate suffix.
Back in the 80s my brother worked in the (now long-gone) British Rail Travel Centre in Regent Street and whenever an American rolled up to his counter and demanded “Ah wanna go to Ahksferd, godammit!” he had to determine whether he meant the lovely university town about an hour away by train or Oxford Street, where all the shops are, which was 3 minutes around the corner.
A similar but less fatal confusion arose between Liverpool (home of a certain popular 60s beat combo, 3 hours away by train) and Liverpool Street (on the eastern edge of the City of London).
Actually, it is standard form, or at least it should be. The simple answer is that UK postal addresses do not include a county at all. The post town removes the need for any county to be used, although you can still add the county (of the post town, not the actual address) if you like.
My smallish town became a post town 15 years ago or so. Before that, the post town was a larger town which is in a neighbouring county, so if you included a county, it wouldn’t be the county I actually lived in.
The old address was, say:
123 Colophon Street, Coltown, BIGTOWN (, Beeshire) AB12 3CD.
Now it’s just:
123 Colophon Street, COLTOWN (, Ceeshire) AB34 5CD.
The counties in brackets are not part of the postal address.
Or maybe not, because the tone is likely to be different from person to person. I come from a smallish city in Pennsylvania that most American Dopers will have heard of, but that doesn’t mean it’s widely known in the rest of the world. So when Norwegians ask me where I come from, I could answer:[ul][li]Lancaster, Pennsylvania[]a smallish city in Pennsylvania[]near Philadelphia[]Pennsylvania, a state in the Northeast[]south of New York City[*]the Northeast, and yes, it snows there ;)[/ul]None are really inaccurate, so which one is appropriate to use? It depends on the person, their past experiences, and their level of interest. So of course I don’t always get it right. I’m not psychic.[/li]
One thing is clear, “Lancaster” alone is a useless description, even after establishing that we’re talking about the US.
I’d be surprised by this, because there are a lot of places in the States where some streets are distinguished only by their suffix (or ‘street type’ as it’s sometimes called). Consider all the roads in Atlanta that are named ‘Peachtree’ for example.
That depends. The street I live on is the only one with that name in the entire metropolitan area, so a suffix is superflous. There’s only one on the map, one in the post office database, one on the tax rolls, etc.
By contrast, my sister lived on 82nd Terrace, and instructed me to refer to it that way, lest it be confused with 82nd Street or 82nd Place.
There’s also the matter that I may be from a city that you’ve never heard of. If I told you I’m from East Cupcake, that means nothing to you. But if I told you I’m from East Cupcake, Indiana, you would at least know where Indiana is.
New York DOES need further explanation. One could be from upstate NY and say “I’m from NY.” If I say I am from NY, NY, I am making it clear that I am from New York CITY.
And then there are people who don’t know there’s a country called Australia and another country called Austria. They show up in Vienna, and want to know how to get to the outback. I bought a t-shirt in Vienna, showing a yellow diamond with the silhouette of a kangaroo, and the words “No kangaroos in Austria.”
Same to my American ears. People in this thread keep pointing out that “New York, New York” is a way to distinguish the city from the rest of the state. But who says that? I’ve never heard anybody say it in earnest; it’s almost always been “New York City.”
Use of “the City” seems to be dependent on the location of the speaker. People living within about 35 miles of a given metropolis will use “the City” as shorthand for it. For example, where I live now, “I’m going into the City tomorrow morning” would mean the speaker is headed into Raleigh; people in DeWitt or Cicero NY would mean Syracuse; those in Cheetowaga or Lancaster (also NY) would mean Buffalo. Beyond that bound in the Northeastern U.S… New York City would be the meaning, as the pre-eminent metropolis of the region. In Home Counties England, it would reference the financial center located within the historic City of London, as differentiated from Westminster and the boroughs that with it comprise Greater London.
On the broader question, the U.S. and Canada tend to use state/province names as clarifiers far more than anyone else (setting Australia to one side, as I’m not familiar with usage there) simply because eponymy is far more common in North America. The only two place names I can think of in the U.K. where there might be confusion are Newcastle and Kingston, and if any likelihood of confusion is apt to result, the river name is appended (e.g. Newcastle-upon-Tyne) for clarification. But there is only one Lancaster, only one Rochester, only one Belfast, only one Birmingham, only one Manchester, only one Portsmouth. But there are Kingstons in Ontario, New York, and Jamaica Rochesters in New York and Minnesota, Vancouvers in Washington and B.C., Portlands in Maine and Oregon, Springfields in Massachusetts and Illinois, Salems in Massachusetts and Oregon, Burlingtons in Vermont, New Jersey, and North Carolina, Newarks in New Jersey, Delaware, and Ohio … and without major strain I can think of occasions when I might make a post making reference to the majority of them. (The Eastman School of Music and the Mayo Clinic are located in Rochester, for example – two different Rochesters.)
I knew an Australian over here who said he was complimented on his excellent English by some Thai university student. Said the guy really thought it odd how good his English was. He could only assume the kid thought he was Austrian.
It varies a lot. I haven’t been to NYC, but from its portrayals in countless novels and films, it’s pretty clear to me that identifying your street as just West 53rd or East 60th is standard practice. Everyone knows you mean midtown. The Post Office asks us to use all the street name suffixes as appropriate, except for “St.”, when addressing mail. I don’t think they particularly mind if we do write ‘St.’ in the address, but generally speaking it’s the ‘default’ and not needed.
In L.A. we tend to name all the suffixes when referring to streets in conversation. Since there are a few “terraces”, “places”, and even a few “courts”, “walks” and “steps”, it’s usually necessary.
With regard to San Francisco I read once that the City itself is known for hardly using suffixes at all. Maps seem to bear this out–it’s just Haight, Masonic, Fell, Grant, Gough, and so on. OTOH Columbus is an Avenue, isn’t it?
Yeah, no one from New York City actually says “I’m from New York, New York.” That’s bizarre. That’s only how it’s written out when sending mail.
Well that’s cause East or West automatically mean streets. (Except for West Broadway, I suppose, which is a totally different avenue than Broadway.) Streets run east-west, avenues run north-south and only go up to 12th Ave.
(Btw, did the board setting just change to be able to do nesting quotes? I couldn’t do that before.)
Context is everything. If we’re talking about the differences between living in New York or Los Angeles, everyone knows we mean the cities, or at least the respective metro areas. If the discussion is dealing with things that Manhattan is famous for, like Times Square and the Metropolitan Museum, “New York” clearly means the City. OTOH if you put me in front of a globe or map and desire me to point out “New York”, I’m going to have to ask you which New York you mean.
I was just looking at Amtrak’s website. For the Northeast Corridor services that stop in New York they have omitted the “NY” qualification in their timetables.
By contrast, for the Pacific Surfliner, Los Angeles still bears the “CA” appendage–as does every other city on the route, although they are ALL in California!
Since you mention Ireland (albeit in passing), the usage in Ireland is very similar to that in the US. The town or village will be followed by the name of the county; e.g. “Newcastle, Co. Dublin”, “Holywood, Co. Wicklow”, “Bangor, Co. Down”. Exceptions would be cities such as Cork, Dublin or Belfast, towns that are in the county of the same name (you would never say “Wicklow, Co. Wicklow”; instead you would say “Wicklow town”) or where you have a reasonable expectation that the listener knows where the place is.
I think the interesting question here is not why Americans say “Paris, France”, but why non-Americans find it annoying.
