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Comment by bzusb | Hacker News Reader

I'm not American and because of the name I've always assumed federal express was government-related.

And don't confuse UPS (United Parcel Service) and USPS (United States Postal Service).

Then there's the band "The Postal Service" that got a cease and desist from USPS to stop using their trademark.

However it had a happy ending: the United States Postal Service -- the real one, as in stamps and letters -- signed an agreement with Sub Pop granting a free license to use the name in exchange for working to promote using the mail. Future copies of the album and the group's follow-up work will have a notice about the trademark, while the federal Postal Service will sell the band's CD's on its Web site, potentially earning a profit. The band may do some television commercials for the post office.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/arts/music/postal-service...

For the longest time I thought these were the same companies

Or Uninteruptable Power Supply. When I got my first job, I always wondered why our company designated the UPS with their own room on the floor map...

This is fascinating; I had no idea that non-Americans thought this. Every American knows it's a private company and most know it's a classic rags-to-riches story started by a guy named Fred. It simply never occurred to me that anyone might assume it was a government entity, even though now I get why.

Oh, come on. It's plausible that most Americans know it's a private company, but most people do not know it was started by a guy named Fred. (or do you mean a guy named Fed?)

Frederal Express don't have the same ring to it.

I don’t know, Busby, I think you’re onto something ;

Maybe I should have said "Americans my age." Fred Smith got a lot of news coverage in the 80s. He used to be a case study in business schools.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Smith

...and apparently I was wrong about the rags part.

He did get close to rags in the middle there

Well, then, clearly it should be called Frederal Expresss.

A long time ago when I lived in Pakistan, the local franchise holder for Federal Express processed and handled visa applications to United States. The final interview if needed was still conducted by Consulate employees but everything else was Federal Express. I want to be clear that nobody wa strying to imply that Fedex was a government agency but it acted almost like USPS does for US passports.

USPS has a contract with Fedex to carry its mail, by the way, so the US passports are also most likely handled by Fedex at some point.

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