PAF-5-USERS-L Archives

Archiver > PAF-5-USERS > 2003-09 > 1063297159


From: "Richard L. Halliday" <>
Subject: RE: [PAF-5] State Abbreviations and USA
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 09:19:19 -0700
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030910121247.01c94ab8@pop.cfmc.com>


And Greetings to you Richard R;

Your point is valid and well stated. Abbreviations are dangerous things.

In partial support of your stated case you may remember the time, perhaps
forty years ago, when we were encourage to abbreviate place names. The rule
was to delete all vowels and truncate the name if it exceeded a specified
number of letters (about fourteen letters, I think). I suspect that this
was done to accommodate the limited length of the fields in the IBM cards
that were used at that time to record information. As a result the section
of the IGI labeled World Miscellaneous is cluttered with those entries
because the computer cannot decipher those abbreviations. Further, I have
heard that a team is working on expanding those abbreviations and moving
those entries to the correct categories.

In addition I have heard the suggestion that "shire" should be added to all
of the county names in England. While I do not support the use of any of
those county names abbreviated (e.g., Notts [or whatever the current
abbreviation is] for Nottinghamshire). Neither do I automatically add
"shire" to all of the county names because not all counties in England are
Shire counties. For example in Northern England York is a shire county
(Yorkshire) Durham (which is always written as "County Durham" is not.

Personally I spent more than thirty years puzzling over the occupation of
one of my great grandfathers. His occupation was shown as "FWK", I found
this in censuses and other documents. It must have been widely understood
at that time (the early to middle 1800s). It was not until I visited the
Lace Museum in Nottingham, England that I discovered it meant FrameWork
Knitter, a worker in the lace industry. Lace was then produced on large
machines that were constructed on cast iron frames.

Abbreviations can be deliberately misused. The most egregious misuse of an
abbreviation that I can remember occurred prior to WWII. At that time Japan
was well known for producing shoddy goods. Products coming into the United
States were required to be labeled with the place of origin. The Japanese
renamed an island Usa. They then transshipped products through that place
and labeled them "MADE IN USA" to deliberately obscure the origin.

Another problem with place names that occasionally confuses the Family
History Department computers is using Europe or a similar continental
appellation following place names in a continent (e.g., Paris, France,
Europe) (and, yes, I do know that Paris sprawls over about seven counties).

In spite of the potential problems, I will continue to append USA to the
place names of all localities in the United States of America. I will do
this for several reasons. A major problem with using "United States of
America" is its length. Even though PAF will accommodate a name of that
length this forces it to truncate or abbreviate other parts of the place
name when they are displayed. It will make the pattern of the place names
consistent (i.e., the entry following the last comma will be a national
name). I was unaware, and it is true that I should have realized, that the
abbreviation for the Union of South Africa is U. S. A. I have two friends
who lived there and my recollection is that they used "South Africa" rather
than the formal "Union of South Africa". Even so in my limited traveling
(some in the Far East, Middle East, North Africa, Europe and North America)
I have not found any English speaking person (my knowledge of other
languages is limited to a smattering of Spanish) who failed to recognize USA
and being the United States of America. Actually, I wish that we had
adopted the suggested name Columbia while it was still available. Further I
am uncomfortable calling myself an American meaning a citizen of the US when
everyone born in North or South America is an American.

Richard Halliday

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Rands [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 12:50 PM
To: Richard L. Halliday
Subject: Re: [PAF-5] State Abbreviations and USA


Hi Richard,
> When I am teaching beginner classes I tell the students to never use
>place name abbreviations. I then ask them "What does the abbreviation 'AL'
>stand for; Alaska, Alabama or Alberta, Canada?". Another treacherous one
is
>'Aust.' Is it Austria or Australia? Next I tell them to always follow
>state names with USA.

I wasn't going to raise an issue, but in the end couldn't hold back. I
whole heartily endorse your instructions to never use place name
abbreviations. So much so that I gulped when you advocate the use of the
abbreviation USA following state names. I have already encountered
confusion with USA between US of America and Union of South Africa. I have
already seen that there is a United States of Africa on the drawing board
that was a topic of discussion during Bush's recent visit to Aftrica.

In my mind, using the abbreviation USA does not improve the place name
designation any more than it adds to potential confusion, as long as the
remaining place names are not abbreviated either. The only exception I am
aware of so far is Georgia.

I served a mission for the Church many years ago in Brazil. When we sent
mail home to the USA, we were instructed to append the address with the
abbreviation EEUU. I was told that it was the Brazilian abbreviation for
USA. Once I learned enough of the language to wonder what EEUU stood for,
it didn't make sense because the translation for USA is Estados Unidos
d'America. I would have thought that the correct abbreviation should be
EUA. I discovered that a letter with the abbreviation EUA would be sent to
the United Emirates of Arabia. But why the double E and the double U?

The explanation was not logical. Since the actual name for Brazil is the
United States of Brazil, they refused to use the single letters EU for the
US. So their postal service specified that EEUU would be for the USA. I
have traveled extensively around the world, and have yet to encounter
someone who did not immediately understand "the United States" as being
the USA. Even in foreign countries, a reference in the local language to
"the United States" is still automatically assumed to mean the
USA. (Estados Unidos, Etas Unis, etc.) But the abbreviation EU is now
widely used to mean the European Union. So you can understand why I am
reluctant to advocate the use of USA in place names.

The problem is tricky. I still believe that adding USA to a place name
that contains a state name is not going to contribute anything, and will
potentially cause confusion. Only when it stands alone, should it be used,
and then I recommend spelling it out.

Just my opinion

Richard Rands






This thread: