[WikiEN-l] Thoughts on naming people - article content, this time.

[Charlotte Webb]

On 6/14/07, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Paris, France" is also a bit pedantic.  When we refer to Paris in
> normal speech, the French capital is assumed.  For less prominent
> place names, the country or state name helps to jog the memory and
> remove ambiguity.

In the previous post I was referring to the practice of adding both
the state name and country name at the end, such as "Grand Rapids,
Michigan, United States", which I believe would be helpful for at
least a portion of non-U.S. readers, and redundant but not harmful to
the everyone else.

If a paragraph said "Shaftesbury, Dorset" or "Dartford, Kent" it would
only raise more questions than it answered, for a typical American
reader.

Sometimes it depends on the context. If the subject of the biography
(the actor in this case) is crossing the pond for a notable,
life-changing event, I think the article would be more likely to
completely spell out place names. Doing so might even be considered a
necessity rather than a concern.

—C.W.