John, some of us here in the U.S. are ALSO confused about U.S. States. Some 20 or 30 years ago, the Postal Service forced thes two-letter state abbreviations on us, and many of them don't make sense. Where I am now used to be Calif, or at least Cal; but now it's CA (California). Where I used to live was Wis or Wisc, but now it's WI (Wisconsin). The M's get really confusing: MA (Massachusetts), ME (Maine), MN (Minnesota), MS (Mississippi), MI (Michigan), MO (Missouri), MD (Maryland), and MT (Montana). These abbreviations don't always make natural sense, so they're naturally confusing.
I guess we shouldn't complain. The postal codes I see in other parts of the world don't make a whole lot of sense to the casual observer. Here in the U.S., the Postal Service wanted to foce a 9-digit numerical ZIP code on us, and the people revolted and actually won that battle. We kept our 5-digit Zip codes, which aren't quite so impossible. And the people actually WON, at least this one time. We're certainly losing the battle with the Phone Company on telephone numbers....
-Joe Offer, CA 95812-0412-