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A comment on Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS. Parent comment

Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by Markoff on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:18AM (#16890967)
i am curious, where does it say "whatsapp" in dutch? you don't use international names?
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Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by dansimau on Saturday April 21, 2018 @10:01AM (#16891450)
"appje" is the diminuitive form of "app", which is a shortened form of "whatsapp" (referring to a whatsapp message).

In English, you would never shorten the phrase "I'll send you a whatsapp" to "I'll send you an app" because the word "app" would be confused with a mobile app.

The Dutch still use the word "app" to mean a mobile app; "appje" means a whatsapp. So the diminuitive form allows them to disambiguate.

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Re:Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to A... by raarts on Saturday April 21, 2018 @09:58AM (#16891435)
The -je suffix in Dutch is commonly used and means 'small'. 'app' is used here as an alias for WhatsApp.

I'm also Dutch but I think 'app' is more like an alias for any chat service. WhatsApp is indeed huge though. Texting is basically dead in Europe afaict.

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