A post by David Weinberger mentions how long it took the committee charged with giving each state a two-letter abbreviation to do the job. Apparently the states beginning with M were problematic and non-intuitive.
That reminds me of something that's always puzzled me about boat registrations. Most boats have to be registered, just like a car, in the municipality they belong in, and doing that results in numbers that you affix to your bow. (This picture shows the registration numbers reasonably clearly.) The numbers are preceded by a two letter code, so a boat's bow will read "ME 7134AN" or something like that and everyone knows that the boat is registered in Maine. But the odd thing is that boats from Massachusetts have the two-letter registration abbreviation "MS" instead of "MA". I've always wondered why this is so. And what they do in Mississippi.
They don't do anything in Miss., double wide trailers can't float.
Posted by: Rufus | September 14, 2004 at 07:50 PM
The boat codes aren't related to the post office codes. The boat codes existed first. For example, Washington is WA to the post office but WN to boaters.
Posted by: Isaac Laquedem | September 15, 2004 at 12:43 AM
Mississippi uses "MI".
Posted by: Jim | September 17, 2004 at 11:22 AM
Jim's comment made me wonder what prefix is used for boats registered in Michigan. The answer is "MC".
Posted by: | September 18, 2004 at 11:14 AM