Today, I was working with several young writers who tried to explain to me that it didn't matter how they abbreviated a state as there were several ways to do so. So, I thought I would have them research their own answers. Lo and behold, dailywritingtips.com came to my rescue, not theirs, and this was in my email. So, I wanted to share it with you in case you have the state name phobia in writing.Your Corporate FireFighter in Peace,SherState Names and Abbreviations - DailyWritingTips |
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Posted: 01 Oct 2013 09:43 PM PDT
How should you treat references to
states? The form depends on which style guide you adhere to and why the state
is being referenced. Details about how to refer to states follow.
The Chicago Manual of Style and The
Associated Press Stylebook agree on one thing: When referring to
a state on its own, spell the state name out (“California became a state in
1850”). However, when referring to a city and the state in which it is
located, although Chicago recommends retaining the spelled-out version of the
state name (“San Diego, California”), AP style calls for abbreviating the
state name (“San Diego, Calif.”) if it consists of more than six letters. (Chicago also has
abbreviations if you insist, but they don’t always match AP’s style.)
The AP style abbreviations arbitrarily
range in length from two to six letters, and all two-word names are
abbreviated with the initials, such as
N.Y. for “New York” — with the exception of West Virginia’s
abbreviation, which for some reason is rendered W.Va. (Note that AP style omits state names
for a specified list of cities considered familiar enough that the state in
which they are located need not be mentioned.) In headlines, the periods are
omitted.
However, when giving an address,
or in tables or other uses in which space is limited, use the US Postal
Service’s symbol system, which consists of a two-letter abbreviation in which
both letters are always capitalized and no periods are used (for example, NY for “New York”).
Other style handbooks have their
own guidelines, so, if you are writing or editing for a particularly company
as a staff member or a freelancer, determine which resource is considered the
authority on state abbreviation.
Note, too, that abbreviation of
country names is rare and not recommended. US
and UK are
frequently used as nouns in informal contexts, but the names should be
spelled out except as adjectives — “the US response,” for example, or “the
UK’s role” — and Chicago
recommends omitting periods in these cases, as is advised for all capitalized
abbreviations.
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