Address Short Forms. (office, best, cities)

[hell_storm2004]

Hello All,

Just was curious, how long has US been using short forms for addresses, is it for ages or a new thing? US is the only country that i have seen to do that till now. Lane becomes Ln, Boulevard becomes Blvd. Kinda weird!

And address forms on the internet most of the time do not even accept long forms!

[flyonpa]

Just a Guess, But they made "Short Forms" to save space on Computer Disk/Tapes Back in the 60/70's

Few bytes here Few bytes there. Its adds up to MegaBytes when Disk Space was costly. Also probably saved some toner in printing a little less also.

[hell_storm2004]

Interesting, makes sense!

I googled a bit, but could not find much information on this.

[animatedmartian]

Here's the whole list of them that many people probably hadn't even realized existed.

C1 Street Suffix Abbreviations

The US has a rulebook for government grammar. This rulebook has existed for over 120 years.

U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual

9.16. Words such as Street, Avenue, Place, Road, Square, Boulevard,
Terrace, Drive, Court, and Building, following a name or number,
are abbreviated in footnotes, sidenotes, tables, leaderwork, and
lists.

9.17. In addresses, a single period is used with the abbreviations NW.,
SW., NE., SE. (indicating sectional divisions of cities) following
name or number. North, South, East, and West are spelled out at all
times.

The GPO states that too many repetitive and long words can distract so it's probably best to minimize them for better readability.