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Comment by mattbillenstein | Hacker News Reader

SF or The City please -- never call it "San Fran"

The City is way too generic of a name. Bay Area people would only recognize this as SF--here in O.C., "The City" means Los Angeles. In NY, "The City" means NYC, so on and so on.

"The City" mean NYC everywhere buster, and don't you be forgetting it.

...and most of the world would assume the City of London (the Square Mile, as opposed to Metropolitan London).

...No, the point is the most of the world would assume "The City" to be whatever major city they are closest to.

Well, before Brexit anyway...

"The City" makes sense when you are near a large city. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and you would hear "the city" a lot. When I moved to Oakland, you heard SF described as "the city" a lot. When I go visit friends in Brooklyn and they say lets go into "the city", its a generic name, but we all know what they mean.

Exactly my point.

In NY, "NY" means "NYC"...

Oddly enough my pet peeve is people calling it "The City". Something so grating an arrogant about it, like other cities in the area don't exist, so of course you must be talking about SF. Also, I am pretty sure people from NY would probably laugh hearing people referring to SF as "The City"

I think this is common in and around any major city. I've lived in or near five major cities in the US and the only one that didn't have some use of "the city" was in Minnesota, where "the cities" is used instead to refer to Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Yes I know, although growing up in the bay area, I don't really remember people calling SF "The City" until relatively (maybe last 10-15 years) recently, but maybe I just missed it when I was younger.

Even more odd is that San Jose is a larger city than San Francisco.

"Frisco" it is, then

No, Frisco is in Texas.

Frisco is in Texas, but nothing is in Frisco.

That is quickly changing given how Plano is blowing the fuck up

No, Frisco is in Colorado.

That, too. Where Frisco is not, however, is anywhere on the California coast.

Sad Fran's Disco.

lol

This is all Herb Caen's fault! [1]

I vote for bringing back Frisco. It's a lot easier to say and write.

[1] https://thebolditalic.com/amp/p/5c14348d49c

I was debating San Fran vs SF in order to fit the title limit, but was worried that not everyone would know what SF is. Based on the number of replies, I shouldn't have worried. Now I know for next time!

I would have just dropped "tech".

Drop the "The". Just "City". It's cleaner

San Fran

San Fran...the runner up to Chicago about how to not run a city (end of politics).

Complaining about San Fran as a nickname is...odd or idiotic/strange (why the objection?). It's unique, everyone knows what you're referring to, it's not derogatory - merely a truncation, why the objection?

Chicago's nick as the 2nd City is a reference to the rebuilding after the great Chicago Fire of 1871 (and the source of the MLS team of the same name - and a source of pride).

Now, our nicknames for Columbus, OH are intended to be derogatory (Detroit south). But, I don't get the objection to San Fran...

To immediate parent's credit, the CNBC article does not abbreviate SF as San Fran in its title.

I prefer "The Big Fran" myself

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