It is Friday and Fridays are for fun. it kind of makes my eyes water when I think of all the work I did this week. It was one of those weeks where I saw so many houses that they are all kind of starting to look the same. They don't really look the same I think they just kind of get mixed up in my head.
I can be in two places at once which is a good thing, because there is a Saint Paul, Minnesota and a St. Paul Minnesota. Both are correct spellings and the pronunciation of both is the same.
When I go to look something up on the internet I may not find it if I use St. Paul, and sometimes it won't come up if I use Saint Paul either and I am left to use Minneapolis. The city of St. Paul web site spells out Saint but the domain name is StPaul.gov
This blog is StPaulRealEstateBlog.com but I also own the domain name SaintPaulRealEstateBlog and people use it to get to this site. I own other domain names that have the name of the city in them and if the domain name is important to my business I own both spellings. There are a bunch of St. Paul and Saint Paul real estate blogs on the internet but mine was the first and is clearly the best and I own the domain names.
The brokerage I am now with is Saint Paul Home Realty. Bud decided to spell it out, and I have noticed when Erik Hare writes on Sundays he spells out Saint when he refers to our lovely city where as I take the short cut and write St. I have a theory about that. It seems that the locals who have lived in our city for a long time, or maybe even for generations use the St. instead of the Saint.
On Twitter I am number one in the twitter elite, either for Saint Paul or St. Paul, I don't remember which. I am number one in the city spelled one way and I don't exist if the city name is spelled the other way, and on that site I can't be in two places at once.
In the pre-internet days it probably did not make much of a difference how St. Paul was spelled but today it does. The databases on the internet usually do not allow me to be two places at the same time even though I really am in two places. They give me an 'either/or' choice and I have to make tough decisions.
If you live in St. Paul or plan on moving here it is best to just get used to being two places at once.
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To those of us who live here, it’s almost always Saint. To the rest of the world, it’s almost always St. I’ve taken to pronouncing the “other” short form as Sint to distinguish it in a rather British way. It’s the best I can do.
When you’re searching, however, you have to try both most of the time. I hate to admit it, but I often use St. first because that’s the way outsiders spell things, unless I know I’m looking for a resident. I also put it in quotes, as “St. Paul”.
I don’t think there’s a solution to this problem, either. We’ll just continue to have our own code word for locals and another word for everyone else. Other places might give in and let the rest of the world name them – but we won’t. We make our own fun.
Erik – I think you have it backwards. Outsiders use the Saint. Maybe I need to do a survey or something.
Very fun post to read, Teresa. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida. Or Saint Petersburg, Florida. Or St. Pete, Florida, or Saint Pete, Florida. Seriously, I have to go through what you do, but with four alternatives! And our neighboring city to the west, which used to be legally called St. Petersburg Beach, actually voted and changed their legal name to St. Pete Beach! Talk about identity crisis.
Anyway, I love your blog. I only learned of it two weeks ago, when I saw it mentioned somewhere as I was looking for inspiration. I bought the domain name for stpeterealestateblog.com (eerily similar to yours, eh?)last May, but have just been sitting on it for a year because I didn’t know where I wanted to go with it. So many blogs that I read are so blah. You have awakened me and given me hope that a fun blog with good information as well as personal insights and even photography (yes, I love taking pictures, used to have my own darkroom, back in that era, and have been itching to find a new reason to get out with My Olympus E-3) can be a fine platform for letting people get to know you and find you. And your post today, aside from being fun, made me realize that I was really being foolish not purchasing the “saint” version – if, by some miracle, I should have even 10% of your success with my blog, I’d be very annoyed to have someone else cash in on it by purchasing that name. Luckily, it was available, so I now own both stpeterealestateblog.com and saintpeterealestateblog.com. So, thank you for that tip and thank you for your inspiration, not just in terms of the blog, but in terms of what I perceive to be your approach to life. You’ve given me a nice kick in the pants to get my blog going, and you didn’t even know it! Looking forward to reading your posts on a regular basis… Bob
This is a good point. In areas where there are common misspellings, it is also a good idea to get those common misspelled domain names. Did I misspell misspell?
JT I get your point but both spellings are correct so I have two domain names for most everything.
Bob – interesting story how I bought the name saintpaulrealestateblog.com I was showing someone my blog and told her the domain name. She typed the saint. I had a “well duh!” moment and immediately bought the domain name. As for the blog I started it in 2005. I had never seen a business blog for real estate. I didn’t think about it, I just did it and have been writing a post a day for years . . well now I have Greg and Erik writing two days a week which really helps but I keep it going. Photos are a great way to show where you live. Go get started on that blog and if I can help let me know.