New York City and State

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 4/10/01 7:32:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes:

<< The train  emerged from underground and became an elevated before she
finally   had a  chance to get off (no doubt either in Brooklyn or Queens,
I'm not sure  which).  She did get off, and asked the first transit employee
she could  find how to get to X Street (I forget exactly where in Manhattan
she was  trying to go).  The startled reply: "In NEW YORK?!" >>

The transit employee was being obscure but correct.  X Street is in
_New York County_, whereas Brooklyn is Kings County and Queens is Queens
County.  At one time New York City and Brooklyn were separate cities but
eventually merged.  This distinction is cast not in concrete but in bronze,
on the Statue of Liberty.  The poem "New Colossus" on the Statue of Liberty
reads (line 8)
"the air-bridged harbor which twin cities frame."

Does anybody know when Minneapolis and St. Paul first used the designation
"Twin Cities"?  And has that expression ever been applied (in English) to
Buda and Pest?

New York County  consists not just of Manhattan Island but also a tiny piece
of the mainland, at Marble Hill (thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, who
rerouted the Harlem River).

Sometimes it is clear from context whether the city or the state is meant.
"New York" on the title page of a book means the city, but in "Clinton (D,
NY)" the "NY" means the state.

"New York" is not the only place-name having an ambiguity problem.  There is
also:

Washington, DC and Washington state
Quebec city and Quebec province
Mexico DF and Mexico the country ("Mexico City" is an Anglicization.  In
Spanish the name is "Mexico, Districte Federal")
Rome the city and Rome the empire; also such other powerful city-states as
Carthage and Athens

Then of course there is the habit of personifying a country by its capital.
"Washington told Peking" means "The USA told the PRC" and the message may
have been delivered in New York (City) at the UN.

           - Jim Landau