To pick up on Rob Waller’s note about endless addresses, the official address of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at Reading used to puzzle me. Here it is:
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading
2 Earley Gate
Whiteknights
PO Box 239
Reading
RG6 6AU
Then it occurred to me that the reason for the multiple layers was that this was a portmanteau address, interlarding different user needs. This is what a human visitor needs to find the Department:
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading
2 Earley Gate
Whiteknights
Reading
This is all the Post Office needs to deliver mail:
PO Box 239
RG6 6AU
To complicate it a little, this is what the University postal service subsequently needs to get the letter to exactly the right place:
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
So the official address is a kludge: no-one needs all the information, but each bit of it is used by somebody. But there’s a user who isn’t currently catered for: the SatNav-guided driver who, if they tap in RG6 6AU, will shortly find themselves driving into Reading’s main postal sorting office. What they need is probably
SatNav: RG6 2AU
– would you like to try it and see?
