-- the city that gives the area its name is simply Jackson. There's also no "La Jolla, Calif." -- La Jolla is a section of San Diego. I hope we all know that the Pentagon isn't in Washington, but what about all those casinos on the Las Vegas Strip? Not in Las Vegas; try unincorporated Clark County.
Whether to go all copy-editor on people's asses about such things is another question, of course. I think the Jackson fact is worth enforcing, but you could argue that La Jolla is grandfathered in, the same way "Hollywood, Calif." exists in spite of its nonexistence. I would argue back that we shouldn't say "La Jolla, Calif.," the same way we don't say "Georgetown, D.C." But I would let the Las Vegas casinos be Las Vegas casinos.
"Wimbledon, England" also gets the Hollywood exception, I think, even though technically it's more like "the Wimbledon village of London," but I don't favor rolling over so easily for other violations of the city-state and city-country syntax. Brooklyn, N.Y.? Oh, all right -- it once was a city. But there's no Queens, N.Y., or Bronx, N.Y., or Staten Island, N.Y., or Long Island, N.Y. Go ahead and use "Bayside, Queens" and "Sayville, Long Island" for New York street cred, but screw the stylebook and give readers a little credit when it comes time to choose between a simple "Queens" or "Bronx" and "the Queens (or Bronx) borough of New York City."
"Darfur, Sudan"? No. It's the Darfur region of Sudan.
In a related note, my expertise on Scotland is a little shaky, but the "Gleneagles, Scotland" we keep hearing about as the location of the Group of Eight meeting appears to be a resort, not a city. The actual place that merits the comma-Scotland treatment seems to be either Perthshire or Auchterarder.
What have I left out? (Or screwed up?)
16 comments:
To borrow a line from comedian Greg Proops, "Hollywood isn't a town so much as an idea shared by a million assholes."
My grandparents grew up in Jackson, WY, also known as Jackson's Hole -- then as Jackson Hole.
Saying "Jackson Hole, Wyoming" is a surefire way to announce that you are not "from 'round those parts."
Let's immediately discard the notion that anything the Postal Service says or does has anything to do with actual political or even traditional boundaries. The ZIP-code designation is useful as one bit of information, but it is by no means authoritative.
D.C.-area examples abound, but my favorite is the huge area of Virginia that is Tysons Corner. To the Postal Service, it doesn't exist. True, it has no official boundaries, as is true of many places in Virginia and Maryland, but it sure as hell exists. The Postal Service borrows adjoining names such as McLean, Vienna (a town that, unlike most sections of Fairfax County, actually HAS official boundaries) and Falls Church.
In fact, the name of Falls Church, a tiny, tony town that is politically separate from the county, is usurped by the Postal Service for a huge swatch of moderately close-in Fairfax County. And what isn't fake Falls Church in close-in Fairfax County is fake Alexandria, another case of borrowing from a legitimate city.
Swath. But they do have Swatch (R) brand wristwatches there.
Hollywood isn't the only fake town in Los Angeles. I have lived in Van Nuys, Chatsworth, Woodland Hills, Lake Balboa and Northridge – without ever leaving L.A. When I lived in Northridge, I got junk mail addressed to me in Northridge, North Hills, Sepulveda, Granada Hills, San Fernando and Los Angeles.
I have never seen my "town" referred to as "the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles."
I work there. I carry a badge.
Ah, yes. An airport is a city, but Tysons Corner (no, it's not just a shopping mall!) is not. As I said, many local examples.
MYDESK, D.C. (BW) -- My winning percentage in such disputes at work is pretty pathetic. Maybe that's why I seek other outlets.
That’s a good point to remember about Jackson being the city and Jackson Hole being the valley, but I’d say there is such a place as Jackson Hole, Wyo., just as there is a Death Valley, Calif. It’s up to the style of individual papers, of course, but I don’t think we need to insist that the “place, state abbr.,” convention be entirely restricted to incorporated municipalities, especially when the reference is not a dateline.
The English are not so anal about what they call their subdivisions. Wimbledon, England is fine (Wimbledon, UK is, of course, much better). Wimbledon is a locality (or suburb) in the borough of Merton in London but we commonly talk about the localities and seldom about the boroughs. The localities of London are quite distinct. Don't call Wimbledon "Wimbledon village in London" because Wimbledon Village is a small part of Wimbledon (the original village, actually) and you will not find the tennis centre there. If you were referring to it in a newspaper, you ought to write "Wimbledon, London, UK" on first reference although Surrey towns, such as Wimbleon, Kingston, Sutton and Croydon are sufficiently well known, distinct and large enough for English readers to know where they are without being told they are in London.
Gleneagles is named after the glen of the same name. If you addressed a letter to Gleneagles, UK, the postperson would find it. Large buildings of a certain type are not attributed to the villages they are near, because they are not felt to be part of the village as such.
Saying "Jackson Hole, Wyoming" is a surefire way to announce that you are not "from 'round those parts."
I have it on impeccable authority -- my sweetie, who was raised in Jackson and has brought me back there for several visits -- that the two leading ways to demonstrate you're a hopeless tourist there are:
A. Straddle your stool (saddle) at the Cowboy Bar.
B. Ask a local “Excuse me, where are the TEET-ins? Are those the TEET-ins over there?”
Wimbledon, U.K.? Really? That strikes me as akin, if not parallel, to "New York, North America."
For all the troubles that datelines can cause (and add this to the mix) how warranted are they any more? They've certainly evolved, which is why most datelines don't have dates anymore. I for one wouldn't mourn their relocation to Jackson Hole.
Because we like to get picky here, I thought I would mention that technically it is not "New York, New York" or even "New York City, New York"; offically, it is "The City of New York, New York."
In the UK, I would use "City, UK", "Town/Village, County", and "Locality, City". For instance, "London, UK", "Penzance, Cornwall", and "Clapham, London".
That would make the correct usage "Wimbledon, London", or "Wimbledon, London, UK". However since everyone knows that Wimbledon is in London, I would guess "Wimbledon, UK" is fine.
As Dr Zen said, Wimbledon itself isn't a village. We only have a few "Villages" in London, and these tend to be very small, historic and very wealthy parts of a larger locality. So "Wimbledon Village" is the oldest, wealthiest part of Wimbledon and "Highgate Village" is the poshest, prettiest bit of Highgate.
To illustrate how unreliable ZIP code boundaries and postal designations are, consider the example of Centennial, Colorado - in 2001 it became the largest city to incorporate in U.S. history. The city is divided between seven ZIP codes, each of which either has "Aurora", "Englewood" or "Littleton" as its "default" place name. Thus, postally speaking, the city of Centennial and its 100,000 residents do not exist - they are postally part of Aurora, Englewood or Littleton: in the ZIP code directory, Centennial addresses are listed under these three cities. And since it is "acceptable" to write "Centennial" in conjunction with any of the seven ZIP codes, one can write "Centennial" in an address that is actually in Aurora or Littleton, for example, as long as it is in one of the shared ZIP codes.
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