But how can you possibly pass a lifetime in a country and not know how to abbreviate it?

From The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson. Page 202.

In the morning I woke to watery sunshine, and after breakfast in the Burlington’s large but empty dining room drove twenty miles down the coast to Happisburgh, a remote and lonely but good-looking village roughly halfway between Sheringham and Great Yarmouth. Happisburgh is dominated by a tall, lovely lighthouse with three red stripes. A sign in the neighbouring car park informed me that this was ‘the only independently run lighthouse in the Uk’. Now I am very sorry, but how can you possibly pass a lifetime in a country and not know how to abbreviate it? Why did you bother going to school at all? Why did your teachers turn up in the morning? Apart from this minor outburst of illiteracy, Happisburgh seemed to be an entirely agreeable place. It is pronounced, incidentally, hays-burra, or even just hays-brrrrrr. Norfolk specializes in odd pronunciations. Hautbois is hobbiss, Wymondham is windum, Costessey is cozzy, Postwick is pozzik. People often ask why that is. I’m not sure, but I think it is just something that happens when you sleep with close relatives.