Possessive of city/state & full date at beginning of sentence

[ljaxon]

Hello,

Do we put a comma after “Connecticut’s”, “France’s” and “2001’s” below? Or leave as is, without the comma in each (as shown below)? I cannot find a rule on this anywhere on the net.

No recasts, please.

Hartford, Connecticut’s crime rate has doubled in the last decade.

Paris, France’s sights are breathtaking.

September 11, 2001’s tragic events are indelibly etched in the minds of everyone.

Thanks for any guidance.

[ljaxon]

These are in directly quoted material.

[Erik_Kowal]

You may find the following links helpful:

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/i ... st-1626301

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... t.3405572/

[tony h]

You may find the following links helpful:

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/i ... st-1626301

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... t.3405572/

So are we a point of last resort?

In the same way That I would write "the tall, ginger, woman's feet were covered in custard", or "John, Paul, George and Ringo's first played at the Cavern", I would write "Paris, France's sights ...".

But it has made me wonder whether "St. Alban's's night life drew people from afar afield as Chiswell Green".

[Erik_Kowal]

I didn't realise that St. Alban had been leading such a notoriously dissolute lifestyle that even Chiswell Greensfolk might feel obliged to observe it with their own eyes.

If they were from North Mymms or Colney Heath, I could understand it better.

[Bobinwales]

Coming from the UK as I do, I would write, "Paris (France)". We do not as a rule follow the place-name with the country. If the town is a bit obscure I might use "Lorient in Brittany", but this would require a sentence structure that would avoid the use of an apostrophe; but I would probably do that anyway.

[tony h]

Ok Bob, how would you handle this?

It was another of those "Oh dear" moments, just before the Christmas festivities, as two relatively scantily clad holidaymakers got off the plane in Canada one wearing a hat with corks hanging from the brim. Another case of confusion at booking between Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The card had been franked in several places: Perth, Scotland; then in America in Perth, New York; before finally arriving with Mrs. Perth, New York, Lincolnshire, England.

[Bobinwales]

Quite simply. A written address is precisely that and commas would be correct, but if I were to talk about Sydney, I would be more likely to say, "Sydney in Australia"

[BonnieL]

On a related subject, one of my pet peeves is newspaper datelines that give the name of a city, but not the state or country. When all newspapers were on paper, it didn't matter all that much, because you knew where the newspaper came from. But now, with everything online, it's harder to figure out. A paper called "The Statesman" might be from Austin TX or Calcutta, India - or it might be the weekly from my small town.

A dateline that reads "Portland" & nothing else might be Oregon or Maine, "Washington" might be D.C. or my home state. It can be difficult to figure out from the context where the newsworthy event occurred.

End of rant.

A rant for another day - why is Washington the only state that has to have a last name? I've so often seen it referred to as Washington State.

[Bobinwales]

A rant for another day - why is Washington the only state that has to have a last name? I've so often seen it referred to as Washington State.

To distinguish it from Washington DC?

[Erik_Kowal]

Bob's right. Otherwise there would be endless confusion as to which location was being referred to.

[BonnieL]

A rant for another day - why is Washington the only state that has to have a last name? I've so often seen it referred to as Washington State.

To distinguish it from Washington DC?

But D.C., for District of Columbia, is part of the official name of our capitol. If that were used, no one would need to add "state" - which isn't a part of the official name - to Washington.

Tho I read that D.C. started using that designation on driver licenses, but TSA people didn't know that it was in the US. So they're going back to Washington.