Bx. Co.

Just ran across this abbreviation for the first time in a court case; it's used in New York court citations, when the name of the county is included, and it means Bronx County, e.g., "See People v. Brown, 2022 NYLJ LEXIS 1051 (Sup Ct Bx Co.)." There are many references to it, and (less commonly) "Bx. Cty.," "Bx. Cnty.," and "Bx. County," so it's not just a one-off, though it's still much less common than the fully spelled out Bronx. A quick search reveals that Bx for Bronx is a common non-legalese reference, though seemingly pretty slangy; not all such abbreviations make their way into legal usage.

Comments

[ReaderY]

Definitely worth a Bx chr.

[Ridgeway]

Other than the court systems, I don't know if there is really any county government in NYC per se. The 5 boroughs overlap exactly with the county boundaries, and each has a borough president, as opposed to a county executive like the rest of the counties in NYS.

I am not sure if the counties even run their respective NYC courts, or if the nomenclature has been superseded but just never updated.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Our home for four years. Mostly fond memories.

[y81]

I'm not sure why Bx is "slangy" (an odd pejorative from a descriptivist). Is Cambs or Hants slangy?

[Eugene Volokh]

y81: Not pejorative, descriptive. There's nothing wrong with slang, and it's common in informal speech. But it's rare in professional prose -- I wouldn't normally expect an opinion to talk about how some incident happened in "the Bx."

On the other hand, "Bx. Co." as an abbreviation in a citation, where abbreviations are commonplace, seems like a non-slang usage, more akin to something like "Colo." for Colorado.

[Beldar]

You can't trust any labels in a state that calls each of their trial courts a "Supreme Court."

[Matt F]

The Bronx buses are numbered with Bx, e.g. Bx20 is the Riverdale-Inwood route, as distinct from the B20 route in Brooklyn. So the usage is not just slang but also as official as the Metropolitan Transporation Authority.

[Daniel Schmutter]

As someone who grew up in The Bronx, I can confirm the bus thing Bx 1, Bx 2, etc. So it's not just slang.

The court citations seem to be all over the place: (N.Y. Cty _and_ New York Cty; Qns Cty _and_ Queens Cty).