🚀 go-pugleaf

The Tastee Diner discussion in dc.dining, in which posters actually made a
distinction between Fairfax County and Fairfax City, touched a nerve with
me, since the use of "Fairfax" alone is one of my pet peeves.

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

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

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

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

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

A similar problem exists with the postal designations of "Alexandria" and 
"Falls Church" being much larger than the actual cities. For example, 
neither the East Falls Church nor the West Falls Church Metro station is 
in Falls Church.

I realize I'm the only person who cares about this issue, but thanks for 
bearing with me . . .

Bill Walsh
Copy Desk Chief
The Washington Times