* mv for move
* rm for remove
* co for clone (which SVN uses as an abbreviation for svn checkout)
* ci for commit
As well as the fact that you can abbreviate any command that hg doesn't have specific aliases defined for by typing any unambiguous prefix. Git, on the other hand, has no aliases by default, and no prefix aliases.
I mean, I know "hg mv" is actually longer than "ga", but by golly, expecting unix shell users to know about the alias system built into the operating system is just the kind of elitism we can expect from linus.
If you want aliases, it's literally a matter of five minutes to find some (e.g. [1] is the 4th hit for a google search for "git aliases") and put them into your .gitconfig.
And I would argue that prefixes are more confusing than helpful, especially in conjunction with aliases. For instance, going by prefixes you'd expect "co" to mean commit, yet in hg/svn it means clone/checkout.
[1] http://gitready.com/intermediate/2009/02/06/helpful-command-...