> AR-AZ can really confuse someone. <
I think it all traces back to the post office’s decision to make all state abbreviations two letters. Bad idea, in my opinion.
Arkansas used to be commonly abbreviated as ARK. No confusion there. So of course the government had to mess with it.
“I think it all traces back to the post office’s decision to make all state abbreviations two letters.”
When used with the ZIP code.
This happened as everything started being computerized.
Memory was so precious anything that could be truncated was truncated. When I joined the military I took the tests for two Services (no ASVAB back then) and in each case aced the blocks except for their respective admin blocks. I was a bit upset when my my Flight's test scores were posted on the bulletin board at the entrance door and they had truncated my scores to 99. My TI told me it was due to the computerization that happened between me taking the test and the implementation of computer scoring and ASVAB.
This was also why people freaked out with the Y2K issues back in 1999.