Re: CHAT: postcodes

En réponse à Eamon Graham <robertg@...>:

>
> Quite right.  My girlfriend's mother once found a collection of
> small calenders in a house she was renting - some of them quite old
> - and in the back of one of them there was a table of French license
> plates codes.  I forget how old it was but to give you an idea, it
> listed Algeria as part of France. :)  I forget what its code was.
>
Until it got its independence, Algeria was a department of France like any
other, with exactly the same administrative system (Alger was its prefecture I
think). That's why its independence was much more difficult to accept for
France than any other colony we ever had: for people at that time, Algeria was
so much considered part of France that giving it independence would have been
like giving independence to the Finistère (the department at the end of
the "nose" of France, in the Atlantic Ocean).

> Here, it's quite common to see _just_ the Departmental code when
> referring to a place.  I might, for example, sign an e-mail "Eamon
> Graham (49)" meaning I'm Eamon Graham and living in Maine-et-Loire.
>
Indeed. We are supposed to know by heart what each department number stands for
(I still remember the long evenings trying to get that list in my head and the
exams I had only on that, and how I failed them miserably - I've never been
good at learning by heart, found it utter nonsense, like most what we learnt in
geography classes anyway, and I just cannot remember something that doesn't
interest me -).

>
> License tags are formatted thusly: NNNN XX DD where NNNN = a four
> digit number (I've seen more, but outside my window right now I just
> see 4 digits)
You can't see more, since there can only be four digits. On the other hand, the
number of letters is not limited. It begins with at least one letter, but two-
letter plates are the norm, and three-letter plates are becoming more and more
common (they have already been common in Paris for a decade or so).

 XX = two letters and DD = the departmental code.  I
> don't know - maybe someone can confirm or deny this for me, I don't
> own a car - but the XX seems to have something to do with the
> location as well.
No. The letters belong with the four digits before, and have to do with the
date when the car was first bought (the exception is the WW letters, which mark
temporary plates, before the car receives its definitive plate, and the CD
letters, which mark cars of the Corps Diplomatique - basically cars from
embassies and the like). It's simple: It begins with 0001 A, then 0002 A,
etc..., until 9999 A, and then we get 0001 B, etc... until 9999 Z, then we get
to 0001 AA, 0002 AA, ... 9999 AA, 0001 AB.... 9999 ZZ. And after that (it makes
already a whole lot of cars, since each department has an independent count,
that's why the department number has to stand there as well), you begin three-
letter plates with 0001 AAA. Note that cars with one letter plates are
extremely rare (because they are extremely old, in France the plate is for the
car, not for the driver as in Belgium). I personally only saw one in my whole
life.

  I've noticed that here in Maine-et-Loire a lot of
> license tags have two letter codes beginning with the higher letters
> of the alphabet; XY 49 is very common at the end of license tags
> here in Angers.
>
That's only a mark of the common age of the cars. Since you have 9999 cars per
two-letter sign, it's not surprising.

In the Netherlands, cars have plates with two groups of two letters and one
group of two figures, and they have to do only with the date the car was first
bought (but unlike in France, they do a national count rather than a
departmental one). Funny enough, when they run out of plates, they rearrange
the three groups, giving them another order. So you see cars with plates going
LL-DD-LL, but also cars with LL-LL-DD plates and cars with DD-LL-LL
plates :))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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