Many of the important (and long) avenues of Washington, D.C., are named for various states of the Union, but not all of them. For example, there are major avenues named for Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

There are also Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue, and avenues whose names are just letters of the alphabet, such as Avenue K.

I just wonder why there aren't important ones named for Delaware, either of the Carolinas, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and especially Virginia. This list includes a lot of the oldest states.

Back when the site of Washington, D.C., was chosen and the city was laid out (in its streets and avenues), Virginia was the most populous and wealthiest state, topping New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
When the site was chosen, it consisted of 100 square miles of land that were donated by Maryland and Virginia -- but in 1846, the part in Virginia was given back because the Federal government was not using it. Hence ever since then, Washington, D.C., has all been on the northeastern side of the Potomac River.

(I wonder when the first bridge was built over that part of the Potomac -- because that is a big river there, and bridging it was not easy. It could be that the first bridge there was a railroad bridge.)

Dale A. Wood

I have visited the Embassy of New Zealand in Washington, D.C. I went there because I want to look through a newspaper from Auckland, and the staff members there were most happy to let me do so. [I have had the same experience at the Australian Embassy when I wanted to look at newspapers from Sydney and Melbourne. This was in the time before the Internet came into use, of course.]

There is a nice plaque in the New Zealand Embassy that states that the cornerstone of this building was lain by Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Washington in 1976. Besides her official visits, the Queen has also made unofficial visits to the U.S. She and Prince Phillip simply wanted to go to Kentucky to shop for some horses.

There was a time back in the 1930s and before when none of the Dominions, Commonwealths, etc., were allowed to have any foreign embassies or consulates. If you had diplomatic business with any of those, such as to get visas to visit those countries, you were expected to visit the British Embassy or consulate.

I was happy to read that when they were allowed to establish embassies of their own, the first Canadian Embassy was in Washington, D.C., of course. A little more surprising is that the first Australian Embassy was in Washington, too, rather than being in Wellington, Tokyo, Peking, London, Ottawa, etc.

By far the largest embassy in Washington is the Canadian Embassy, which is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol Building and the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue is a very long and important one there, and in fact it extends a good way into Maryland, too. The only embassies on Pennsylvania Avenue are those of Canada, Mexico, and (interestingly) Spain.
The British Embassy is locted on Massachusetts Avenue in an area called "Embassy Row" because of the many Embassies there. Just to name a few, there are the embassies of Australia, Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Japan, the PRC, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the U.K.

The Embassy of New Zealand and those of several other countries are just a few blocks off Massachusetts Avenue.
DAW

Re: "Everyone deserves our best." I hope they pleaded not guilty to your charge. Everyone (the audience) deserves our (the station's best), surely?

Let me be clear and confirm the fact that "our" did not refer to any TV station or any corporation at all. "Everyone deserves our best," was in a commercial that was telecast nationwide. Also, when one hears the entire commerical, the only possible antecedent for "our" is "everyone".
"Guilty, guilty, guilty," the verdict must be, no matter what the defendants pled.

The statement should have been "Everyone deserves his best," (singular!),
or by making an wide stretch of things: "Everyone deserves your best."
The salient problem here is a third-person subject with a second-person possessive pronoun in the sentence.

I have come to the conclusion that the writers of such things (incl. TV commercials) have a basket with many slips of paper in it. On each slip is a pronoun. Then when the writer needs a pronoun, he or she simply draws out a slip of paper at random and then copies the word on that. Then he or she tosses the slip back into the basket.

The same thing applies for prepositions, as I have noticed before.
Let's color code it all: a red basket for prepositions and a blue basket for pronouns.

We have a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. that uses the phrase "imagine you" several times within 30 seconds. Natually, "imagine yourself" is needed. I believe that the writers there omitted all of the reflexive pronouns from their basket(s).

{ myself, yourself, himself, yourself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves }

Oh, well, at least this eliminates the atrocity of "theirself". Or does it?

Oh, there are place names here that were crafted by white people out of components from both Native American and European components. There are also some that white people created "out of thin air" just to look like Indian names. I don't know which are which, and if you would like to know, I will leave it up to you to find out. Some of the possibilities include
Ohio, Indiana, Indianapolis, Kentucky, Iowa, Iowa City, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City,

"Annapolis" is obviously European all the way -- named for some Queen Anne or Princess Anne of England. That city is located in Anne Arundel County, too, but I don't know who she was.

"Philadelphia" comes from a Greek phrase, but I think that it might refer to something in Egypt.

We have a Prince William County, Virginia. This one was named for Prince of Wales who was outlived by his father, George II, but William had already fathered a son for whom Prince George's County, Maryland, was named. Then when the British crown passed directly from grandfather to grandson, he became the bloody King George III -- never a popular one in America. He was on the throne for a long time, and he outlived his wife, too. Their son became King William IV, who didn't have any children or nephews. Hence, he was followed by his young niece, Victoria, in 1837.

There is a period of British history that is called the Georgian Era (so something similar), which created Georgian architecture, among other things. Most historians lump William IV in with the Georgian Era, anyway. Next came the Victorian Era, which ended in 1901, and then after after that, things like Edwardian architecture arose. Oddly, the name of the Prince of Wales (Victoria's oldest son) was actually Albert (born in 1841), and he was called "Bertie" by the members of his family,

For some reason, they (and he) did not want a King Albert, so he chose the name Edward VIII. There was a Prince Albert in Belgium, who became an heir apparent when his older brother died in 1891, and his father died in 1905. ("an" heir apparent because the situation was complicated, especially since King Leopold II didn't leave any legitimate children Albert became King Albert I in 1909.
Perhaps the British thought that the possibility of having two King Alberts in nearby countries would have been too confusing.

The province of Alberta in Canada is not named for any of those Alberts, nor for Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. That province was named for a woman named Alberta who was the wife of the Governor General of Canada. Alberta and Saskatchewan both became provinces in 1905.

King Albert of Belgium, his wife, and their son had also visted the United States in 1919, a long time before any British monarch visited here (King George VI), who traveled to Washington, DC, to visit President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family.

Aha, we have places here that were named by the Native Americans, including cities and entire states where they lived.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was named for a courageous Indian chief of western Alabama. Another city with a native name is Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the popular song of the 1930s and "40s was "The Chattanooga Choo-Choo".
As for everyday railroads, Tuscaloosa has long been on a main railroad line that connects Birmingham, Ala, with Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Some of our states with Native American names include Massachussets, Connecticut, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Utah, and Arizona.
As for cities with such names, those are a little harder to find because so many of them received their names from Europe or Africa (yes, Alexandria, Memphia, and Cairo). Let's think: Native American names for cities Cheyenne, Chattanooga, Biloxi, Miami, Tuscumbia, Minneapolis, Omaha, Topeka, Walla Walla, Tucson,

Otherwise, we have a gross number of cities and towns with European names, including Albany, Amsterdam, Athens, Augusta, Birmingham, Bristol, Boston, Champaign (spelled the American way), Charleston, Cleveland, Cumberland, Dover, Frankfort (spelled a little differently), Georgetown, Geneva, London (or New London), Manchester, New Bern, Newcastle or New Castle, New Orleans, Paris, Portland, Portsmouth, Rome, Sheffield, Stuttgart, Vienna, Washington, York and New York, and dozens more.

D.A.W.

Re: "the Atlantic's waters are deep."

Something that so many people cannot grasp -- and especially British people -- is that inanimate objects do not have any possessive case because inanimate objects are incapable of possessing anything. Wow, that requires some logic.

Hence: the cold water of the North Atlantic, the blue of the sky, the center of gravity of the beam, the carbohydrates of the corn, the boundaries of Switzerland, the warmth of the sun, the warp drive engines of the starship USS "Enterprise".

However: the cow's bell, the wolf's sharp teeth, George's lance with which he slew the dragon, the dragon's fiery breath, Achilles' heel, Homer's epic poems, the kukaburra's call, which causes him to be called the "laughing jackass", the President's power of the veto, the turtle's shell, Captain Ahab's obsession with the great white whale. Tolstoy's long and difficult novels.

Note that I wrote "North America" for a reason because anything that is broadcast across the United States automatically arrives in Canada, too, and especilly in the big Canadian cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.

The cities of northern Mexico are covered by broadcasts from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California -- both in English and in Spanish. I have read of Mexican children who learned English from watching American TV from San Diego, Laredo, etc.

I have read that DBS satellites have made broadcasts, especially from Miami, quite popular in Cuba -- despite the fact that DBS receivers are illegal in Cuba.Cubans hide their DBS antennas in attics, barns, thickets, and so forth.
In the Bahamas, satellite TV receivers are all quite legal, and the language there is generally the same.

D.A.W.

A new TV commercial, written by the uneducated and the lazy, has just been telecast in North America. One of its sentences says, "Everyone deserves our best."

Our? Our? Our? That is not only wrong in "number", but it is wrong in "person".

"Everyone" is third person singular, but "our" is first person plural.

In an earlier TV commercial, the writers wrote "we" (first person) when "they" (third person) was what was needed to agree with the antecedent.

I hope that those writers pled guilty and threw themselves before the mercy of the court.

"The waters of the Atlantic Ocean became his final resting place..." illustrates nothing ???
Well, nothing but a sentence with singular nouns all the way through from beginning to end.
As for your hearing singular subjects used with plural nouns, there is the distinct probability that you have been listening to undereducated and lazy people. Those people should plead guilty as charged. "But Your Honor, I thought that one plus two equaled four.")

Don't argue about collective nouns. The VERY DEFINITION of collective nouns includes the fact that they are all singular. Hence, if you don't want a noun to be singular, then it cannot be a collective noun.

If the noun is plural, then call it something else.

D.A.W.

Oh, I ought to mention: the response that I got from that TV station was words to the effect of "fiddle-dee-dee".

I did point out that Birmingham is the location of a major state university, an important private university, and two junior colleges. College courses in English and journalism are readily available in Birmingham for anyone who wants to improve his or her abilities. If one is working in Birmingham, all it takes is the will to do so.

In Birmingham, one can also study mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, engineering, business, and many other subjects if one only has the gumption to do so. I never took any courses in Birmingham, but where I live is about half-way between Birmingham and Huntsville. I liked the course offerings in mathematics at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville better, so I took a lot of graduate courses there, and I earned my master's degree there.
(The University of Alabama actually has three campuses in three different cities. It is a bit funny: My daugher and I studied in Huntsville, my sister studied medicine in Birmingham, and our father earned his doctorate in education in Tuscaloosa. Our uncle also earned his M.S. in engineering in Huntsville. Hence, we have a lot of ties to the Univ. of Alabama - though I also earned a master's degree in Atlanta, Georgia.)

One time on the JEOPARDY TV quiz show here, they said, "This university has campuses in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville," and the contestant was supposed to name the university. I said, "Give me a break! That one is too easy!"

We have some public universities in the U.S. that have 10 or more campuses in different cities and towns. Check these out: New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California.
D.A.W.