How long does the name of a town have to be beofr you're allowed to shorten it without offending the natives?
 

People get postal when San Francisco is shortened. Cincinnati residents go to war about Cincy vs Cinti. Cmon people! We are a lazy society and lots of us can't type and have to hunt and peck for all those letters!!!

See? I already messed up "before" and I haven't had any wine!

Since you mention "get postal" -- why not just do what TV did with Beverly Hills and just use the zip code? <g>

It makes me insane when people refer to either North or South Carolina as Carolina.

No such state as Carolina.

Refering to both as 'The Carolinas' doesn't bother me.

I'm a native of Chapel Hill, NC and I shorten the town name to CH all the time in written communication. A lot of people do it around here.

I don't think 'Pel would go over well for CH if it was shortened like Frisco for San Francisco.

The Philadelphia CVB website is GoPhilly.com so I guess they like the nickname.

If your proper name is Robert, and you are routinely called Robert or Rob, is it OK for strangers to call you Bobby?? I don't find it difficult to use the preferred nickname or abbreviation of the residents, not one that offends.

Funny about Cincinnati, that's where my father was born and he and my relatives who have lived there all their lives call it Cincy.

And a friend from Kalamazoo always called it Zoo, but that may have been for other reasons.

I wonder if people in Walla Walla just call it Walla?

Well not too far from Walla Walla is Vancouver. In Vancouver, BC, we have "West Van", "East Van", and "North Van", but calling Vancouver "Van" would ruffle locals' feathers...

So which ones are acceptable, given the Philly example above?

* LA sounds okay to me in both writing and speech?
* Las Vegas seems to be commonly shortened to "Vegas".
* NYC seems acceptable to write down but I never hear anyone say it?
* San Fran or 'Frisco both seem a big no-no all round? Do the natives abbreviate San Francisco at all?

By the way, I'm from the UK so may have got it all wrong anyway!!

Is it OK then to say that Pittsburgh is a Pit?

Where2Travel you seem very astute. I'd say you got all those right. I hadn't even thought about LA (which is spoken, unlike NYC) or Vegas.

Neopolitan--LOL! A good friend is from Walla Walla and she laughed when I told her your comment/question. No, they say both words:)

Where2Travel, I think you are correct. I can write that my son lives in SF, but there is no acceptable way to shorten it when speaking. Unless, like some of us of a certain age who went to one of two rival schools in the Bay Area, you simply say "The City". But that would be incomprehensibly vague to anyone outside the immediate area.

Well, where to, here in Kentucky if you say UK it means University of Kentucky! ( I went to UL, Louisville) And kayd, what if your name is Richard and your last name is Head? How would you abb. that? LOL! I MET a guy with that name, honest, and he was a lawyer! And my husband's company is in Cincinnati and HE says Cinti, where I've said Cinci all my life (my family came from there)

It must depend on the city...and on how well the nickname flows. No self-respecting Philly person would say they were from Philadelphia :) But can you imagine calling Baltimore "Balty"? Just doesn't have the same ring to it.

New Yorkers tend to just call NYC "the city." Maybe it's an ego thing ;) And a lot of towns get the "J-Lo" treatment...you know, M-town, P-way, etc.

Oh, and Neopolitan...I don't know about the whole city, but everyone at University of Pittsburgh calls it "Pitt"!

I wonder if Mickey gets offended when posters refer to his hometown as "WDW?" :D

I don't like Hot-lanta.

I don't like Chi-town.

I don't like Bean-town.

What is wrong with saying Atlanta, Chicago, or Boston?

Seems to me that a non-native may never shorten the name in spoken word without offending - you must call it by its full name. On this board seems that initials are OK, including 3-letter code referring to airport associated with that city, unless it is some obscure place and then it seems to be name-dropping or bragging.

Shortening the word (as opposed to initials) is not OK.

For example, we can now call you LLC, but not Lind, or LindC, no matter how clever we find ourselves at doing it.

Funny about names - I made a point of giving my kids first names that could not be logically shortened (such as no Robert into Bobby) since I wanted them to be called what I named them.

you can call me AL, I don't care. The only reason I'm LLindaC (Linda Carol) is because I can't type and hit the L twice when I first got a computer 10 yrs ago and didn't know about the backspace button