I was always given to understand that the official two-letter postal abbreviation for Quebec was PQ (standing for “Province Québécois” or something like that). But lately I’ve been working at a data entry job and seeing that an awful lot of people use QC instead. QUE also gets used, though mostly by people who don’t seem to know any better. But I’m mainly wondering whether the QC abbreviation holds “co-official” standing with PQ.
You know what? I also thought it was PQ. But the Candian Post office lists it as QC.
It used to be PQ, but a few years ago they changed it to QC. Why? Well, the P in PQ stands for Province, and the separatists are trying to become a non-province.
Personally, I thought QB would have been a better abbrev. and also would have avoided conflicting with QC as Quality Control. Too late to change it now, I guess.
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We used to have abbreviations of different lengths for each province.
Some were based on the first syllable of the province’s name: Ont. (Ontario), Sask. (Saskatchewan), Man. (Manitoba), Que. (Quebec).
Others were a combination of letters from the name: Alta. (Alberta), Nfld. (Newfoundland).
Others were initials: B.C. (British Columbia), P.E.I. (Prince Edward Island), N.S. (Nova Scotia), N.B. (New Brunswick), N.W.T. (Northwest Territories), Y.T. (Yukon Territory).
Changed with computerisation: Post Office decided to go to standardised two letter abbreviations, as set out in the list that Arnold linked.
There was a bit of a crisis last year with the new territory of Nunavut. The original proposal was to abbreviate it as “NU.” Problem was, “nu” is French for “nude.” So, they’re still using “NT,” which is also the abbreviation for the Northwest Territories from which Nunavut was carved.
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Canada Post has a problem with “NU”, but the OLF in Quebec (the language cops), the francophone association in Iqaluit, and the residents of Nunavut don’t. They all have no problem with NU, and I just last week addressed a parcel to NU. Why should NU be interpreted as “naked” any more than ON (Ontario) should be interpreted as the indefinite third person pronoun?
Similarly, most people in Labrador use LB instead of NF. NF for them is the island of Newfoundland.
For some reason, the USPS lists LB for Labrador, even though Canada Post doesn’t. USPS still hasn’t caught up with Nunavut.
AND, if I might rant… I’ve had two pieces of mail from the US returned to sender in the past two weeks for “incorrect address”, with snotty little labels put on them telling the sender that “Abbreviations are not allowed.” COUNTRY abbreviations are verboten by the USPS, but the PROVINCE abbreviations are RECOMMENDED BY THE DAMN POST OFFICE!!! Millions of pieces of mail cross the border every day, but the frigging fools still can’t get it right.
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Regarding teh OP re QC. PQ is a holdover from a very long time ago. It has always been confusing that there is a city AND a province named Quebec (the province was a pre-Confederation province as well.) But it should cause no more confusion than having a NY in NY, should it? Why should Q be the only province called PQ? The city of Quebec is obviously in Quebec, any other city or town in Quebec is obviously NOT the city of Quebec, so the P is redundant for postal purposes.
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there is a simple reason for this. labrador is not a province.
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And Long Island isn’t a state, but you wouldn’t believe how many people write addresses such as “Huntington Station, L.I.,” as if it weren’t a part of New York.
Don’t feel too bad, Geenius; plenty of USAns still can’t get a handle on the 2 letter State/Territory codes for this country and are totally surprised to see TT listed as a valid code.
That still doesn’t explain why USPS uses the popular code for Labrador when Canada Post doesn’t recognize it.
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Um, labradorian, the current province of quebec has only had that name since 1867.
Immediately prior to Confederation, it was sometimes referred to as Canada East, or Lower Canada.
The old pre-Confederation province of Quebec included both the area of Quebec along the St. Lawrence, and a good chunk of what is now southern Ontario; “Quebec” was used as an alternative to “Canada” to describe this region.
Or am I misunderstanding what you were saying?
Immediately before Confederation, it was part of the united province of Canada, created in 1840.
Immediately before being part of the united Province of Canada, it was Lower Canada, created when the original province of Quebec was cut in two in 1791.
Immediately before it was Lower Canada, it was the eastern part of the Province of Quebec, which was erected under the British regime in 1763.
I thnk it was your use of the term the pre-Confederation province of Quebec to refer to the current province of Quebec that I find odd, considering that the former province
a) ceased to exist in 1791, and
b) included parts of what are now Quebec and Ontario.
This may just be a stylistic disagreement; I just don’t think I would use the term “pre-Confederation” in this way.
It existed pre-Confederation, even if not IMMEDIATELY pre-Confederation. The whole period from 1763 to 1867 is often referred to as the pre-Confederation period.
I didn’t say that the pre-Confederation province and the post-Confederation one were commensurate, just that the City of Quebec was in both of them.
You want to know why most of Canada doesn’t call it PQ anymore? Because in their minds, PQ stands first of all for Parti Québécois, not Province of Quebec.
I always thought it was odd that Quebec was the only province that may (or may not) have had “P” in the postal abbreviation. I mean, we don’t have “PO” for “Province of Ontario”, do we?
Not that I disagree with matt_mcl’s statement. QC is much better.
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