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User:BDD/Money cities

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Unlike Wikipedia, Money takes a more commonsense approach to US city naming by eschewing AP Stylebook guidelines. The intent of this page is to document usage in Money with an eye to usage in Wikipedia discussions related to the titling of articles on US places. For ease of data collection, the places involved are those appearing in the "Money Talk" section, containing letters and comments from readers.

Data

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1. Primary topic here, not disambiguated there

* Indicates a city exempt from WP:USPLACE.

2. Primary topic here, disambiguated there
3. Not primary topic here, not disambiguated there
4. Not primary topic here, disambiguated there

Notes

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Group 1

While this group will presumably include most, if not all, of the AP Stylebook's chosen few, its remaining members are of the most interest. Money clearly believes these cities unique and/or well known enough to not need disambiguation by state, and we don't really disagree, although we disambiguate anyway. The practice seems especially absurd with cities like Virginia Beach, the inclusion of state names for which is downright redundant.

Group 2

A curious group. In our terms, these places are unambiguous enough to not need disambiguation although again, we still provide it, only this time, so does Money. Perhaps this is a judgment of a place being too provincial for even the magazine's presumably educated, wealthy readers to know offhand.

Group 3

Arguably some of the rare cases where USPLACE is logical. Context matters. If two Americans in the US are having a conversation and one says he's traveling to Buffalo, the other almost certainly knows the destination in question is in upstate New York. Money seems to count on this sort of recognition. At least with the small sample size thus far, this group seems to be those city names that are ambiguous in a greater context. After all, no one would expect anyone to write Money from inside an American bison.

Group 4

Move along, nothing to see here. USPLACE could be removed entirely and there would still be thousands of US places with a legitimate need for disambiguation. Of this first data cohort, I couldn't've successfully matched many of these places with their states, and indeed in the case of Bennington, the established primary topic is a place in another state.