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As a resident of Seattle, it took be a minute to register that "Washington" in that list is part of DC.
by uiri 9y ago
As a resident of Seattle, it took be a minute to register that "Washington" in that list is part of DC.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoStyle note: when crafting lists whose members include commas, a semicolon is the preferred delimiter. For example, we could amend the above to "... Virginia; Washington, D.C.; West Virginia..."
- marcoperaza 9y agoIn this case, I’d prefer “D.C.” or “the District of Columbia”, to avoid both the ambiguity of the original and the awkwardness of using semicolons.
- peterwwillis 9y agoIt's also (imho) more stylistically correct to not mention Washington. The District of Columbia was originally called 'The Territory of Columbia' as a Federal District, and the 'City of Washington' as a name for the Federal City. So technically there was both a city and district designation, and the city designation still exists as it was redefined in the 1871 Organic Act. I think the reason people say "Washington, D.C." when referring to it in a list of states is that it sounds less weird than the unabbreviated "District of Columbia".
- Dylan16807 9y agoOr just don't put in a comma.
- peterwwillis 9y agoThat would be incorrect grammar, like saying "St. Louis Missouri" instead of "St. Louis, Missouri".
- rtpg 9y agoWould there be a strong argument for simply saying Columbia? After all, context will mostly clear up which one you mean, and we tend to not say "State of Wisconsin" very often.
- throwanem 9y agoYou would confuse a big chunk of the East Coast, where "Columbia" means a city in Maryland southwest of Baltimore. If you're looking for something totally unambiguous, you can say just "DC". If you're the New York Times and likewise, you could say "the District of Columbia", but apparently their style guide prefers otherwise.
- marcoperaza 9y ago>Would there be a strong argument for simply saying Columbia? Yes, that it would confuse most of your readers since DC is never referred to in that way, ever.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]