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A comment on Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams. Parent comment

Re:Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams by MrGilbert on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @12:37PM (#22814501)
I know what "handy" means in English.

So if I ask an American to show me his "Handy", he knows that I want to see his "mobile phone"?

Because that's what "Handy" means in Germany. It's actually "mobile phone", hence the confusion. I learned that "Handy" is almost exclusively used in Germany.

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Re:Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams by frosted-flakes on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @12:56PM (#22814696)
The German usage of "handy" as a noun does not exist in English. "My handy camera" doesn't mean "my mobile camera", it means "my camera that is conveniently at hand".

("Mobile phone" isn't very common in the US either. Common usage used to be "cell phone" or "smart phone", but is now simply "phone".)

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