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Comment by zeristor | Hacker News Reader

PNW is Pacific North West I take it?

At first I thought it might be some part of Papua New Guinea

Google gives first result as "Purdue University Northwest". But assume that's not what OP meant, or did they? Pacific North West is the second result.

This seems to be a very American thing - using acronyms that is American only but then that's what HN must be - mostly American in terms of members :)

It is Penge West railway station (PNW) in the London Borough of Bromley in South London.

Ubiquitous initialism in the area, generally living here a few years i find the climate and culture to be relatively homogenous from far northern california through seattle (and presumably vancouver BC). Very different (for still American) from the other areas Ive lived or frequent (Northeast, south, parts of Cali). Mild, wet climate; passive, introverted, polite culturally (very generally speaking).

HN loves their acronyms. They sometimes say it's because they were on mobile but I don't believe it.

HN is extremely US-centric in general so it's hardly surprising that US acronyms are used without elaboration.

I have never heard of PNW and I live in the US. Also, this person is from Croatia.

Edit: I guess that doesn't disqualify this person from picking up US lingo, but thinking about it further, someone who didn't grow up in the US might be more likely to use regional abbreviations in general contexts.

I think acronyms (or initialisms) are a form of community enforcement. If using jargon to reinforce that people in the group understand.

Or maybe that’s my best interpretation. As it’s also just faster to type PNW than Pacific Northwest and someone who lives there must need to type it quite a bit.

But either way, HN is a community and many people value efficiency and, more specifically, code systems for efficient communication.

Community enforcing as in shibboleet? https://xkcd.com/806/

> I think acronyms (or initialisms) are a form of community enforcement

aka jargon or lingo meant to exclude outsiders. Not nice.

It’s ok to have groups of people with common interests that not everyone likes. It’s not about excluding people, it’s about including some people.

Would you complain if the backgammon club doesn’t play polo? Is that excluding polo players?

The frequent flyer community is so into this.. F / J / Y for classes, 3 letter airport codes, 2 letter airline codes etc. It's annoying really.

Someone used MIL which from context must be mother in law.

Also phrases. "If I recall correctly", "In other words", and all eight different slightly different variations like AFAICT... like what.

(room full of programmers. apparently none of them using any high tech like abbreviation expanders)

My favorite is IANAL because of how ungodly it looks.

MIL makes me think we’re missing MILILF.

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