Birdwatching From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3587 posts, RR: 52 Posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3731 times:
I'm sure most of you non-brits have had the same question once or twice:
Why do you postally-retarded brits (damn I'm going to get flamed for this one ) have such humungpusly long mailing addresses?
Mr. Bean
1234 Tony Blair Court
Pound Hill
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 3AJ
England
United Kingdom
Now here's a sample address in the states
George Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
USA
And one in Germany
Gerhard Schroder
Platz der Republik 1
11011 Berlin
Deutschland
Thats 4 lines on the "continental" ones, and twice as many on the british one.
--------
Second thing that's bugging me:
What are those damn alphanumerical codes in the UK, Canada, Australia etc.
Who can memorize those? How many confusions are there with oh and zero, one and i, etc?
OK, complaining time is over. Good night.
All the things you probably hate about travelling are warm reminders that I'm home
Birdwatching From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3587 posts, RR: 52 Reply 2, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3710 times:
Why do you guys in the US have such long zip codes ?
We make do with only 4 digits here in Switzerland and we do not put the canton (that would be your state) on the address either, so I don't think you can argue that US addresses are particularly short.
Swiss Example:
Peter Muller
Snow road 1
1234 Mountain village
Switzerland
WrenchBender From Canada, joined Feb 2004, 1779 posts, RR: 9 Reply 4, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3703 times:
What's wrong with Canadian Postal Codes. It's always Letter, Number, Letter, space Number, Letter, Number. The starting letter denotes the Province etc.
BTW the difference between this (0) and this (O) are quite obvious to me.
WrenchBender
Old Address was K2P 0A9
New Address is T2P 1T2
Trident3 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2001, 1013 posts, RR: 3 Reply 5, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3690 times:
The alpha- numeric post codes tell the post office far more than just which city to send the letter to.
eg RH10 3AJ
RH =Redhill sorting office
10 =Crawley
3AJ = Tony Blair Court, Pound Hill.
So in theory the letter could just be addressed
Mr Bean
1234
RH10 3AJ
and the sorting office and postman would know exactly where to delver the letter, no street or town required.
[Edited 2005-10-28 21:54:06]
"We are the warrior race-Tough men in the toughest sport." Brian Noble, Head Coach, Great Britain Rugby League.
Checkraiser From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3677 times:
The US Zip does almost as much, for example, my zip is 54476
5 - means it is roughly in the middle of the country - WI, IA, MN, ND, SD, MT
4 - Wisconsin (this could also be a 3)
4 - Sort facility (In this case, Wausau)
7
6 - Last two numbers determine the the final post office from its respective sort facility.
BHMBAGLOCK From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 2698 posts, RR: 5 Reply 12, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3640 times:
Quoting WrenchBender (Reply 4): What's wrong with Canadian Postal Codes. It's always Letter, Number, Letter, space Number, Letter, Number. The starting letter denotes the Province etc.
This makes as much sense to me as the people who tell me that there is no easier city in the world to find your way in than Washington, DC.
AsstChiefMark From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 13, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3624 times:
In the USA, a letter can be delivered to the correct address using just the ZIP code.
Take the ZIP code 55082-2387 , for example. The 55082 is Stillwater, MN. The 2387 denotes A SPECIFIC point of delivery. It may be a house, business, or P.O. box. Kinda cool, I think.
SlamClick From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 10062 posts, RR: 71 Reply 14, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3627 times:
Quoting HAJFlyer (Reply 3): Why do you guys in the US have such long zip codes ?
What the USPO really wants us to use is "zip plus four" or nine-digit codes. Someone once calculated that nine digits are enough for every man, woman, child, dog and cat in North and South America to have its own zip code.
Last I heard, human sorters can only read the first three.
Of course our post office must be the best in the world. They are known for paying their regional managers (whatever they are called) bonuses for being "above average." All of them - above average. A population that is 100% above its own average. Remarkable!
The longest address I've seen yet was for a Mexican citizen who lived near Cancun, applying for a US FAA license of some sort. His address did not fit in the spaces the FAA allows, and their fields are pretty generous. I understood Mexico and Quintana Roo, and a town, but the rest of it was over my head.
Happiness is not seeing another trite Ste. Maarten photo all week long.
Yeh, I know one in the Wirral - he is THE laziest git ever, and I'm damn sure he helps himself to those err, umm, National Geographics, I only seem to get every second month !!!
I do know Canada use H0H 0H0 as a code to send your Santa fan mail too. Wow, what useless info. Do I win a prize?
Breakfast in BHX, lunch in FAO, dinner in TIP, baggage in YYC.
Lindy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 16, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3613 times:
Quoting BHMBAGLOCK (Reply 12): This makes as much sense to me as the people who tell me that there is no easier city in the world to find your way in than Washington, DC.
Whats wrong with DC? Its really the easiest city in the world to navigate.
Just letters and numbers, thats it. 4th Street and D Street.
I work at zip 20210 and live at 20007. And its only 5 miles away
Junketeer From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2004, 10 posts, RR: 5 Reply 17, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3612 times:
Quoting Trident3 (Reply 5): So in theory the letter could just be addressed
Mr Bean
1234
RH10 3AJ
and the sorting office and postman would know exactly where to delver the letter, no street or town required.
So why on earth don't the Royal Mail tell us to do exactly this? Surely it would make it easier for them to sort too?
There are other things make our address system bizarre: first we have counties like Middlesex (incorporating Enfield, Heathrow and Twickenham??) that don't really exist but people still put them on their address and we also (though more rarely now) use latinised abbreviations for counties like Oxon, Cantab and Salop.
Trident3 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2001, 1013 posts, RR: 3 Reply 18, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3597 times:
Quoting Junketeer (Reply 17): So why on earth don't the Royal Mail tell us to do exactly this? Surely it would make it easier for them to sort too?
because if the automatic sorters broke down they would be b*ggered.
With all the temps working as posties these days it is best to give them as much info as possible. ie: town ,street, house number, colour of front door, where the letterbox is etc.
Apparently the temps don't get access to the £1.30 Stella.
[Edited 2005-10-28 23:00:42]
"We are the warrior race-Tough men in the toughest sport." Brian Noble, Head Coach, Great Britain Rugby League.
Braybuddy From Ireland, joined Aug 2004, 5306 posts, RR: 35 Reply 19, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3539 times:
Quoting Birdwatching (Thread starter): Why do you postally-retarded brits (damn I'm going to get flamed for this one ) have such humungpusly long mailing addresses
NoelG From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 20, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3538 times:
British addresses aren't that bad!!
We don't usually include the county or the England AND United Kingdom.
For instance, to post from abroad, you would put:
Mr. Bean
1234 Tony Blair Court
Pound Hill
Crawley,
RH10 3AJ, UK
You wouldn't include the UK if you were within the UK so it would be even shorter.
A lot of the time there is no "Pound Hill" line, for instance, our address would be:
Noel Marsh-Giddings
xx Blah Avenue
Sutton-in-Ashfield
NG17 XXX
(we don't really live on blah avenue but I'm not giving out my real address on the web!).
It's only 4 lines!!
Postcodes - well they're always in the same format, so never any confusion between a zero and a letter o. It's easy to understand - e.g.
NG signifies Nottinghamshire,
17 specifies the postcode zone (in our case Sutton/Kirkby-in-Ashfield), and the last three digits specifies the street (and if it's a large street portions of the street).
BristolFlyer From United Kingdom, joined May 2004, 2143 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (7 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3523 times:
Most of the UK is not on any sort of grid system so we tend to go by descriptions instead of references like da US does. In rural areas the posties must have a nightmare, a lot of the houses are named (not numbered) and quite often don't post a house name. So a new postie will have a 'mare to start with.
It's one of those quaint English things that we are equally loved & loathed for!
Agreed. I find it amazing that for 30p you can have a letter arrive the following morning to a remote village in the islands of Scotland, or way down in the Channel Islands. Great value for money!
Indeed and second class is even cheaper at 21p. Though why the hell they bother, I have no idea: surely it costs them even more to separate the mail and then slow it down. Does any other country in the world have second class post?
25 N1120A: In some ways, people just extend their address in the UK as a way of personalizing it. When I lived in London, I could have just put: XXX Queenstown
26 AsstChiefMark: The US Postal Service eliminated domestic air mail as an option many years ago. According to the USPS, most first class mail went by air anyway. Air
27 Aeroflot777: This is how I send a letter from the U.S. to my family : ó. á. òïóôïæ íÏÓË×Á, òÏÓÓÉÑ õÌ. ôÅÐÌÙÊ óÔÁÎ Ä. 7/2 Ë×.52 1
28 Bill142: Last time I checked, we had no alphanumerical codes on our mail. We have a numerical post (zip) code, it is four numbers with no letters.
29 Wrighbrothers: It's done to confuse/ anoy Americans and others It shows how inteligent we are, why take the simple lazy route when you can laugh at fustrated Americ
30 Wunala: Ours only have 4 numberics in the post code. 2XXX for NSW, 3XXX for VIC etc
31 FlyAUA: Austria still rocks flyAUA Goldenmouthway 4 A-1220 Vienna
32 Banco: It's called "history". You wouldn't understand. That's about 15 miles from me. Now tell me why you chose such a dump?
33 Babybus: Try using a Japanese address. It makes no sense in time or space. There is absolutely no logic to them. You can't use them to find places either. I ag
34 Jush: Well you can do shorter in England and longer in Germany. My adress in England was. Matthias Brink 14 George Street Taunton Somerset England UK TA2 7D
35 Senliture: In Australia we have express post, which guarantee next business day arrival in metropolitan area across the country, does that count? But the 'norma
36 We're Nuts: I'll go out on this limb: Switzerland: 39770 sq. Km. United States: 9631418 sq. Km. Or 242 times larger. Owned.
37 Bill142: I could imagine that being confusing if you have to search for the code. But I suppose if you knew the exact location, which if your sending a letter
38 Mhodgson: The difference is, First Class is sorted ahead of Second, so under certain circumstances SC can be as fast as first. First is sorted first, and so al
39 GoAround: Absolutely: Mr A Smith c/o Mrs B Smith House name 14 Street Name Residential Estate Specific Area More general Area County Postcode Country... If you
40 RedDragon: Surely the only difference is that you abbreviate the state to two letters (and I assume whack it on the same line as the city), and put the zip code
41 BHXFAOTIPYYC: Yes here we have "Corrieo Azul" (Blue Mail) which is guaranteed to be, err, more expensive than normal mail.
42 RedDragon: But this is hardly a UK-specific thing - any country can have addresses spread out over as many lines if the person in question is arsey enough!
43 RichardPrice: In the UK, general issue postcodes are not unique and will sometimes apply to as many as 40 locations, almost always in the same street. So if you wan
44 VonRichtofen: Actually, the British (and Canadian) post code system is much more accurate than the US Zip code system. Post codes are accurate within about 100m. I
46 WrenchBender: Yes, Got in Saturday, start work Monday, hopefully my furniture gets here by the end of the week(and intact). I am happy to be back in the west. Wren
47 Kaddyuk: Because that is *almost* my address... Are you postinng me a letter?
48 FlyingTexan: My friend, We're Nuts, allow me to add: Switzerland population: 7.4 million (estimated) United States population: 297 million (estimated)
49 Birdwatching: I don't think so, unless you ordered bulk amounts of LEGO pieces from me last week... you didn't, did you? http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=soere
50 Mt99: Listen to this hilarious NPR report about addresses in Managua, Nicaragua. No street numbers, no street names http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story
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From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3587 posts, 
) have such humungpusly long mailing addresses?
From , joined Dec 1969, posts, 
From Switzerland, joined Sep 2005, 1466 posts, 
From Canada, joined Feb 2004, 1779 posts, 
Do they offer any college courses on deciphering ZIP codes in Canada ? 
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From Ireland, joined Aug 2004, 5306 posts, 
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