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Over the years, the best way to identify someone from the US is if they use an obscure acronyms (or brands) and expect others to understand it. It happens all t
by tchalla 5y ago
Over the years, the best way to identify someone from the US is if they use an obscure acronyms (or brands) and expect others to understand it. It happens all the time on HN.
“I went to my RN”
“I always try to do things via Colosia” (made up brand)
“Our HSA allows us to go to my bank”
- schoen 5y agoIt's interesting that German also has widespread use of acronyms and they're totally different from the English ones (both in terms of what the acronym is, and which concepts are denoted with an acronym). E.g. WG = shared apartment (Wohngemeinschaft), LKW = truck (Lastkraftwagen), FKK = nudism (Freikörperkultur). Also German-speaking countries seem to have standardized acronyms for pieces of legislation (XyzG), but, unlike the case in the U.S., these acronyms are never pronounceable as words or meaningful. In the U.S. there is a huge sport of making legislative titles spell out something clever. Like CLOUD Act, USA PATRIOT Act, CARES Act, CAN SPAM Act, USA FREEDOM Act, REAL ID Act, and so on.
- tchalla 5y ago> It's interesting that German also has widespread use of acronyms and they're totally different from the English ones (both in terms of what the acronym is, and which concepts are denoted with an acronym). E.g. WG = shared apartment (Wohngemeinschaft), LKW = truck (Lastkraftwagen), FKK = nudism (Freikörperkultur). I would say, German has abbreviations (not acronyms) due to extremely long compound words. Hence, they are meaningful.