Quote Originally Posted by markdfhr View Post
I think that would be the Commonwealth of Virginia.

We're kind of funny about abbreviations in the US. Each state has its own, set by the post office. VA would be Virginia. LA would be Louisiana. But if you're from CA, LA is Los Angeles, and you do say ell ay as a shortcut name for that city. Most states you don't call by their abbreviations. PA (Pennsylvania) is one notable exception I've noticed. DC (Washington, DC) is not a state.
Oh, right. We're a bit weird with that here too. I live in South Australia, and there's nothing wrong with saying S A ("es ay"), you can say N T ("en tee") for the Northern Territory, "double you ay" for Western Australia (WA), but you can't say "en es double you" for New South Wales (NSW), but you CAN say "Vic" for Victoria (Vic), can't say anything for Queensland except Queensland as far as I know. ACT is almost always "ay cee tee" (no one says Australian Capital Territory) and of course Tasmania is normally Tasmania or "Tassie".

Now I need to find out why it's the Commonwealth of Virginia and not a state... :-)