Thanks for the input, guys. The sister-distance thing I’ve dealt with by gently telling the cousin that Richmond is 800 miles away.
The cold issue is trickier. I assume that she knows that it’s cold in Chicago in January, and probably also knows that Chicago-cold is colder than what she’s used to. Even if she “knows” that a cold January day here might be more than 30/15 degrees F/C colder than she’s ever experienced, though, she likely doesn’t understand what that means. Cold like that can hurt, and even people who are used to it (and know how to prepare for it) avoid spending nonessential time outside.
It’s a little hard to point that out without seeming patronizing or unwelcoming.
State abbreviations are used because that’s how postal addresses are written. No one puts “USA” on the envelope when mailing a letter from Minneapolis to Boston.
While you’re probably right, I can give an anecdotal example to the opposite: my relatives from north-western Ireland say that they find the damp weather they return to on winter holidays feels much more unpleasant that that of their new home, in the Albertan Rockies.
But that criticism wasn’t about postal abbreviations.
The criticism was about the use of two-letter state abbreviations. Those are the postal abbreviations, and they’ve become standard practice when referring to states in situations where writing out the state name is time-consuming or where space is limited.
Americans don’t generally refer to what country they’re from because with the exception of the Internet, it doesn’t come up all that often. Unless you live on the northern or southern border, you don’t interact with non-Americans all that often, and when you do it’s pretty obvious that you’re a local. It’s far more common to refer to what state you’re from, or what state you’re in, though.
I dunno where Usians comes from. It’s just one of those accidental words I think. Like Canadia.
I’m not objecting to the US postal service. I’m objecting to people from where-ever assuming that I have a clue about their postal service abbreviations. Fine to put TX or SW1 on an envelope. Just don’t expect everyone who uses the internet to have a clue that it refers to places in America or the UK.
I hate the two-letter postal abbreviations and I never use them, regardless of whether I’m communicating with an American or non-American. And when you’re typing on a keyboard, there’s absolutely no reason not to write Kentucky or Minnesota rather than KY or MN. You’re not being charged by the letter.
But, by default if not mentioned, the person is from America, didn’t you know that? That is a standing rule.
I spell most states out but I do forget to spell out NY, NJ and NYC for New York City. I understand NJ is not a useful abbreviation outside of North America, but is NYC or NY understood? How about DC or LA?
I also tend to use UK for the United Kingdom and US or USA for the United States. Are these okay?
LA - no problem whatsoever - it’s an internationally-understood abbreviation.
NYC - no problem. NY is probably going to be taken to mean the city rather than the state.
DC - mostly the same. And lets face it, you’re probably talking politics if this one crops up in an international conversation!
NJ - yep, probably not very helpful. In a ‘can you name the fifty states’ test, it’s probably one of the ones most likely to be overlooked, and I’m sure plenty of people don’t realise its proximity to NYC.
I can’t see how these could possibly be misinterpreted!
Common postal stuff-ups:
WA (Western Australia) - WA (Washington state)
British alphanumeric postcodes - Canadian alphanumeric postcodes (where the country is omitted)
Australian four digit postcodes - South African four digit postcodes
SA (South Australia - SA (South Africa)
The last two combined are especially troublesome. This is why it’s really, REALLY important for folks overseas to deign to write the name of the country in nice, fat capital letters at the bottom (in the language of point of origin). I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who’s mail gets lost when they don’t feel they need to do that. You send your pretty postcard of the Sydney Opera House back to the folks in Upper Clusterfuck, WA, it’s a good chance it’ll be routed via Perth rather than Seattle.
Great post. I might add that non-US Dopers might not be the best people to use to gauge knowledge of this sort of stuff. After years on this board, you can drop names like SoCal, Twin Cities, DFW, Bay Area, and yes even “America’s Wang!” and I instantly know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any of my non-Doper friends who wouldn’t have trouble though.
And it goes both ways too: a many years too late word of thanks to the Americans on this board - it’s so refreshing to be able to type posts in complete, relaxed, comfort-zone Commonwealth English and have American readers who don’t bat an eyelid and can understand what I’m talking about. Try doing that on Yahoo.
Why was the secession of Texas from Mexico a glorious fight for freedom and perfectly all right, but the secession of that same state from the USA in the Civil war a couple of decades later was something illegal that had to be crushed with military might?
The Civil War wasn’t about preventing secession nearly so much as it was about ending slavery. There was little serious fighting in Texas, or anywhere else west of the Mississippi River, though.
Its secession from Mexico was okay because, dammit, they were *Americans *, and they even dominated the population there.
So they were both moral crusades. No inconsistency.
That is a standing rule.