🚀 go-pugleaf

Edward Rice writes:

>[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.

First, thank you for your lucid response; please allow me to probe further:

Where do you get these "correct names"? I mean, the name of Elm Street is 
"Elm" and it's a street, so the standard naming convention in American 
English is to say "Elm Street." Likewise, it's a standard convention in 
the United States to use "County" with county names so as not to get them 
confused with city names.

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

As for Fairfax City being "The City of Fairfax," well, sure, almost all 
jurisdictions like to use the "of" construction to make themselves sound 
like big-deal corporate entities, but I agree with the commonly held 
style point that this is not sacred and we don't have to humor them.

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

Insult The Times all you like, but "fledgling"? 1982 is a while back :-).

>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.

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

>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"?

Yes, I'm a "fledgling" resident of the area -- four years and counting on 
Capitol Hill and one year before that in Alexandria. The real Alexandria.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
*    BILL WALSH, Washington, D.C. . . . . . bwalsh@access.digex.net     *
*    Prodigy HVGM83A, CompuServe 73173,3030, America Online WFWalsh     *
*                        Fax: (202) 546-0720                            *
*                                                                       *
*                          I'm just a Bill                              *
*                        Yes I'm only a Bill                            *
*                And I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill                   *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *