🚀 go-pugleaf

  BW> From: bwalsh@access3.digex.net (Bill Walsh)

  BW> As a newspaper editor, I'm interested in precision, and "Fairfax" is
  BW> one of those cases where you can never tell what people mean when they
  BW> say it.

Well, I disagree with much of what you say (except for your right to say it, of
course).  First of all, the 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.

These two facts can be independently corroborated, although perhaps not through
the facilities of your fledgling journalistic institution.


  BW> George Mason University is nearly universally called Fairfax or even
  BW> Fairfax City, but it's actually just outside the city borders.

That's a special case -- a (very, very small) fraction of the campus is
actually in Fairfax City, and much of the campus border on the north touches
Fairfax City.  If you would not have people call it "Fairfax" /or/ "Fairfax
City," then what would you wish?  "Eastern Missouri"?


  BW> On the one hand, when you hear something without the word "county,"
  BW> you think of the city -- if someone says "Los Angeles," nobody will
  BW> think you mean the county. But in this case, Fairfax County is a much,
  BW> much larger jurisdiction than Fairfax City, and people often refer to
  BW> the county as simply Fairfax.

"You," in this case, doesn't include "me."  I grew up north of New York City,
and we used "Westchester" without any modifier to refer to the county "all the
time."  With specific regard to Fairfax, when I hear a reference to it I apply
the context of the reference and my knowledge of the area (and occasionally, my
handy copy of the ADC atlas of the County, including the City), to be sure I
know the location in question.


  BW> If the city were actually PART of the county, this would not be an
  BW> issue, but it's independent, and so if you decide it's OK to refer to
  BW> the county as Fairfax and then you refer to something in the city that
  BW> way, you've committed an error.

Yup.  Accuracy is a requirement.  For some of us, more than for others.


  BW> From what I can tell of popular usage, "Fairfax" refers to the city
  BW> and to parts of the county nearby that don't have a distinctive
  BW> identity. Nobody refers to Mount Vernon as Fairfax (in the county but
  BW> too far away), and nobody refers to Tysons Corner as Fairfax (not too
  BW> far, but it has its own identity).

I may join you, reluctantly, in decrying the casual use of community names by
the press as though they were jurisdictions.  Reading an article, it is
disconcerting to find a comment that something was the first incident "in
Annandale" or the worst case of <whatever> "in or near Tysons Corner" -- the
community names are treated as though precise, and they are anything but.  The
careless postal designators make matters worse: I have friends who used to live
a few miles west of Falls Church (City of), and insist to this day that they
lived /in/ Falls Church, maps and tax bills and street signs notwithstanding.


  BW> I realize I'm the only person who cares about this issue, but thanks
  BW> for bearing with me . . .
  BW> 
  BW> Bill Walsh Copy Desk Chief The Washington Times

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"?