When to Use "Inc.," a State, or a Year

 

Writers sometimes don’t know when to include a state after a city, a year after a specific date, or an “Inc.” after a company name. The answer, oversimplified, is: only when it’s necessary.

News media usually don’t include years for dates in the past 12 months or the next 12 months. So a speech that took place 11 months ago would say the date only, “The president spoke on March 1 to congress.” That’s because events, in news media, are presumed to mean the most recent occurrence of that date unless specified otherwise: “The president spoke on March 1, 2009, to congress.” Ditto that for upcoming dates. If it’s happening in next 364 days, no need to state the year: “The concert will take place March 1.” And that’s true even if you’re writing about it in February of 2015 but it doesn’t happen till January of 2016. That will, in fact, be the next January. So no need to mention the year.

“Inc.” and other legal designations after company names are less necessary than a lot of writers realize. Sure, the company might like you to write their name exactly as they say. But unless you’re working for them, you don’t have to. The New York Times talks about Coca-Cola and Apple and General Motors without mentioning their incorporation status – or including ugly registered or trademark symbols. If they can, so can you.

As for state names after city names: Have you ever noticed a sentence like this? “The meeting will be held in Atlanta, which is a change from previous years in which it was held in Austin, Texas.” That is, have you noticed how sometimes states are included after city names and other times they’re not? A lot of publications designate certain cities as “standalone cities.” They’re the big ones – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris and so on – chosen because they’re immediately known to most readers with no mention of the state or country required. They’re pre-designated, for consistency’s sake. And the system works out really well, when you think about it: If you mention Paris without the country, readers correctly assume you mean Paris, France, and not Paris, Texas.

In all these cases, you can see the same general idea: omit needless stuff. If it's not necessary, then it's just clutter. 

 

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