Dear Time-Reader Jorma ja Eera-Pekka Paavolainen is a TIME-subscriber in Finland. How to fit this jawbreaker of a name on TIME'S standard subscription record cards is the job of a crew of girls in TIME'S Denver circulation office, which handles records for most of our subscribers in military service and for many overseas TIME readers.

Like TIME'S U.S. and Canadian circulation office, in Chicago (about which I wrote you in this space last summer), the Denver office uses hole-punched cards on which to record all the information we need about subscribers. Names & addresses, however, are printed on the cards, and the space provided for them is limited to four short lines. The first, second and fourth lines can have only 22 typewritten characters, and the third line only 20.

For most American addresses, this poses no problem. But in boiling down the names and addresses for some foreign countries, the "names editors" have to exercise all their ingenuity. Addresses can usually be trimmed through the use of standard abbreviations. In German, for instance, Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung, which means "limited," can be cut down to G.m.b.II. Similarly, Aktieselskab, the Danish word for "incorporated," comes down to A/S. The abbreviation Drng. may be used for Dronning, Danish for "queen," and Kong, Danish for "king," can be abbreviated to Kg.

The use of initials helps cut down the length of names, but family names are never abbreviated in any way. The problem which arises here is that family names may come first, in the middle, or last, depending on the country. A set of editing rules has been drawn up for French, German, Danish, Portuguese and Spanish subscribers, and rules for Indian and Italian names are now in the works. Typical of these is the five-step procedure used for shortening Spanish names: 1) eliminate y (and) or viuda de (widow of);

2) reduce the first name to an initial;

3) delete titles; 4) if there are four (names, make an initial of the second; 5) if the name is still too long, make an initial of the fourth. Thus, Antonio Orlando Sanchidrian Palmero, a charter subscriber to LIFE EN ESPANOL, became A. O. Sanchidrian P., for purposes of his file card.

One Finnish subscriber is a bookselling firm called Rautatiekirjakauppa OY, a name which just fitted the 22-character limit. But the same company is also TIME'S newsstand distributor in Finland, and its name and address (Koydenpunojankatu 2. Helsinki) is a constant challenge to the stick-to-it-iveness of typists who handle their correspondence.

Subscribers in India often include their occupations as part of the address. One recent order was signed:

A. M. Basave Gowda Coffee Planter Thippanahally Estate Chickmangalore Post Mysore State, India

The names editors regretfully cut out "coffee planter" and, for the sake of simplicity, eliminated "state" from the last line. The Denver office has had no complaints about cutting out titles or occupations, almost none about the liberties taken with names for editing purposes. Says Eleanor Kohler, staff assistant at the Denver office:

"Whenever we can, we try to go along with the subscriber's request. But what the subscriber pays for is the magazine, not correspondence. Getting the magazine regularly and on time is what the subscriber has the right to expect."

To keep a constant check on how well copies of TIME are getting out, free subscriptions are sent to selected persons all over the world. In return, these subscribers send regular reports on how their copies are coming through.

Sometimes, when space permits, the editing girls will add to an address to make it more specific and to expedite delivery. All addresses are first checked against the Denver office's library of postal and geographic information. One of the best sources is the Dictionnaire des Bureaux de Poste, listing approximately 350,000 post offices. Cities with the same name are sometimes tricky to identify. India, for instance, has five cities called Vallam. When everything else fails, or when various sources are in conflict, TIME'S names editors have learned that the subscriber himself can usually furnish the best postal information.

Cordially yours,

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