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.

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.

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?

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.

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.