On 6/14/07, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)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.