Re: CHAT: postcodes

Canada has a system similar to UK in that its alphanumeric, but ours go
like X1X 1X1. I haven't a clue how they came up with the letters though,
and all I know is that the very first letter represents the province or
territory, the few I know for sure:

V = British Columbia
T = Alberta
R = Manitoba?
M = Ontario

How they came up with these, I've no clue...

----ferko
Ferenc Gy. Valoczy

25kV/50Hz - http://25kv50hz.cjb.net

DDR?! DDR rules!!!
        - Anja Mittag, German national women's U19 striker, said to me
        21/8/02 at Swangard Stadium, Burnaby, BC following Germany's 3:1
         victory over Mexico, when she saw my East German flag. :)

On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, [iso-8859-1] bnathyuw wrote:

> ( a propos nothing in particular, and not really
> directly related to conlanging, altho as this is an
> international and well informed group i may get some
> helpful answers )
>
> i'm interested to know what sort of post codes
> different countries use, in particular to find out
> whether anywhere else has anything remotely similar (
> either in form or in function ) to the british system
>
> our system here, for those who don't know it, is
> alphanumberic, in the form ( L standing for letter, D
> for digit and parentheses marking optionalness ) :
>
> L(L)D(D)* DLL
> * the first half can in one or two cases have a final
> letter
>
> the first letter(s) are related to the name of the
> place they refer to :
>
> E East london
> EH EdinburgH
> G Glasgow
> TW TWickenham
> WC West Central london
> BF BelFast
>
> these are followed by a number that indicates which
> subdivision you're in. 1 usually represents the
> central subdivision of the area, but the rest are
> allocated in different ways. in london, the allocation
> is alphabetical, so you find SE10 ( Greenwich ) next
> to SE3 (Blackheath)
>
> this first half of the post code can be found on
> street signs in some places, particularly london (
> indeed the london system dates back a long way )
>
> the second half of the code is always in the form DLL
> and indicates to within what in america would be
> called a block where the address is. odd and even
> numbers have alphabetically adjacent codes, reflecting
> the need for one code for each side of the road. this
> falls down when roads aren't numbered with odds on one
> side and evens on the other, but for some reason is
> stuck to
>
> because of this, the system is pretty accurate. this
> means that when you phone up to order something (
> tickets, whatever ) the person on the other end will
> frequently ask your postcode before any of your other
> address details. the rest will then pop up on their
> screen and they just need to confirm your house number
>
> so, questions :
>
> is the uk really odd in using this system ? does
> anything similar exist elsewhere ? i haven't seen it
> in the places i've been to, but that's not saying much
>
> secondly ( desperately trying to bring this back to
> conlanging, or at least conculturing ), has anyone
> addressed this issue in any of their concultures ?
> i've always thought it really wasteful that each
> person has a street address, a phone number, and an
> email address here. why not have something that could
> be used for everything ?
>
> anyway, i'm wittering on. i'll stop
>
> bn
>
> =====
> bnathyuw | landan | arR
> stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
> your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre
>
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