🚀 go-pugleaf

  BW> From: bwalsh@access.digex.net (Bill Walsh)

  > [T]he name of the county is "Fairfax," not "Fairfax County," so it's
  > /correct/ to call something "in Fairfax" when it's in the county.
  > 
  > Second, the correct name for the city /is/ "City of Fairfax," so
  > referring to something that is in the city as merely "in Fairfax" is
  > incorrect, although people do it occasionally.
  > 
  BW> First, thank you for your lucid response; please allow me to probe
  BW> further:
  BW> 
  BW> Where do you get these "correct names"?

Selected from the phone book -- the counties are listed, for example, as
"Fairfax County," under the heading of "County Governments."  But that looks
(to me, please check it yourself in the NoVa blue pages) as a style that TPC
uses throughout -- each county name has "County Government" appended to it. 
The cities, which appear before the counties, are listed as follows:

    Alexandria City Government
    Fairfax City of
    Falls Church City Government
    Herndon Town of
    Leesburg Town of
    Manassas City of
    Vienna Town of

That looks like there's a clear distinction being drawn in the names, and I
seriously doubt that some drone at TPC made the distinction.

(I could be wrong about this -- go back two years, to the 1992 telephone books,
and try to find the organization that is colloquially referred to as "the
Vienna Women's Center."  Then try to find the same organization in the 1993
book.)


  BW> And are you really saying the county doesn't use "county" in any of
  BW> its documents? Is it the Fairfax Board of Supervisors and not the
  BW> Fairfax County Board of Supervisors? You could be right, but I doubt
  BW> it.

The county does, but as noted above, I think that is because it's standard
form, not because of the official name.

Are you aware, Bill, of how Falls Church and Fairfax City and Manassas Park
(inter alia) came to be what they are?  A little research in that direction
would -- I am not making this up -- probably help resolve the ambiguities. 
Until Manassas Park or Fairfax City seceded from its containing county (I
forget which of them was the last), it was legal for Virginia towns and cities
to elect to withdraw from the county containing it.  That was abused
significantly, usually by people who wanted to avoid paying school taxes. 
Falls Church and Manassas Park and Fairfax City have fewer kids than their
surrounding counties' averages, and wanted to save their residents money. 
So... Fairfax (the county) existed, and within it was a city called Fairfax,
which was the county seat.  The city seceded from the county, and had to
distinguish itself by name, and became "City of Fairfax" or "Fairfax City,"
take your pick, when it withdrew.  Ironically, this left Fairfax-the-County
with headquarters in Fairfax-the-City, which was not located in
Fairfax-the-County, although Fairfax-the-County entirely surround
Fairfax-the-City.


  > These two facts can be independently corroborated, although perhaps not
  > through the facilities of your fledgling journalistic institution.
  > 
  BW> Insult The Times all you like, but "fledgling"? 1982 is a while back
  BW> :-).

Yup.  I know other twelve-year olds who feel they're mature, too.  Does your
editor-in-chief still wear pajamas to the office?


  BW> Yep, that's a problem. Alexandria might be twice its size if you
  BW> included all the people who think they live there.

Falls Church surely must be.  I wonder if the Census people have to deal with a
lot of Falls Church and ALX wannabes?


  > You're probably just a new kid on the block.  How long have you been in
  > the DC area, or do you consider Northern Virginia not in the "DC area"?
  > 
  BW> Yes, I'm a "fledgling" resident of the area -- four years and counting
  BW> on Capitol Hill and one year before that in Alexandria. The real
  BW> Alexandria.

Fledgling, indeed.  I've lived in Northern Virginia since 1971, but I do
appreciate your efforts to get us all squared away and organized.  I'd never
argue that we don't need it, mind you.