DCHP-2

postal code DCHP-2 (July 2016)

• 1 n. — Administration

  a structured six-character alphanumeric code specifying a Canadian mailing address in a machine-readable format (see Image 1).

  Type: 1. Origin — In the UK, the equivalent term is post code, while in the US it is zip code. Postal code appears to have originated in Canada and the term is most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1). Postal codes are used in the mechanized sorting of letters and were first implemented in the early 1970s. The first letter of the code starts with A in the east (Newfoundland and Labrador) and moves west in alphabetical order to V (British Columbia) and ends in the north with X for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and Y for the Yukon. Image 1 shows the geographical delimitation that is expressed in the first part (the first three letters and numbers) of the postal code for Metro Vancouver (see Metro (3)). For instance, a postal code of V5V 5C5 specifies an address in the middle of the map, in East Vancouver, marked by the orange square. The last part of the code refers to the side of the street and other details (note the difference from early postal code orthographic conventions; see the 1978 quotation).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "postal code", and Gage-3, s.v. "postal code", which are marked "Cdn", and ITP Nelson, s.v. "postal code", which is marked "Canadian".

  See also: Metro (meaning 3)  

  • The UK post code was implemented between 1959 and 1974. The Canadian code resembles the UK code, in that it uses an alphanumeric system unlike the US zip code which is all numbers. The concept may derive from the UK, but the linguistic form is uniquely Canadian.

• 2 n. — originally in figurative use

  the area designated by a postal code.

  Type: 1. Origin — In recent years, postal code has become identical with the area serviced by a particular postal code (via a process that is called metonymical change). In the mid 1980s, the use of "postal-code areas" can still be seen (see the second 1986 quotation), while in later quotations this is condensed to just postal code as in "Canada's poorest postal code" in the 1999 quotation, which refers to the Downtown Eastside community of Vancouver, which has its own postal code that is used metonymically for that neighbourhood (see also the later quotations).