> Using airport codes as shorthand for their parent cities is an incredibly incredibly common convention. Well and truly established.

Not many HN people, especially from outside of the US, can immediately recognize PDX. Besides, the commenter I was responding to used SF for San Francisco. For consistency sake they should had used SFO then. :-)

It’s one of those weird things we do in America. San Francisco is SF, Los Angeles is LA, San Diego is SD, San Antonio is SA, and Dallas is DFW. You might hear those said in conversation. Austin is ATX, Houston is HOU, and Portland is PDX. Those are more likely to be referenced in written text rather than said out loud.

Not all of those are airport codes. I suppose it’s due to the fact that Portland is just one word, and it doesn’t contract as nicely as the other cities.

Oddly, though, you never see ORD used for Chicago. It means the airport, and only the airport.

And somewhat the same with LA. LA is the city, LAX is the airport. You don't really see LAX used for the city.

> you never see ORD used for Chicago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33277163

> I wouldn't say we always call Chicago ORD, but it definitely happens.

Yeah, agreed.

CHI, yes, sometimes.

But never ORD - or MDW or GYY. Although CGX would be hilarious. :)

It's not immediately obvious to a non US resident what that would be so a common courtesy would be to describe what the initialism was on its first use.

I wouldn't expect anyone to know what BNE (Brisbane) or DAR (Darwin) meant at first value.

Common courtesy? Proper etiquette is to ask instead of assume and complain.

I and most disagree:

https://www.mcc.gov/resources/story/section-writing-guide-go...

You can disagree all you like, you're still being pedantic. This is an informal conversation. You can pickup on context clues or ask.

> Using airport codes as shorthand for their parent cities is an incredibly incredibly common convention. Well and truly established.

I've lived in San Diego, the Bay Area, and NYC for extended periods of time, but I don't think I've ever heard someone referring to those cities by their airport codes. Maybe you've lived in different parts of the country?

It's an incredibly common well established convention within a group of pilots, controllers, airline workers, hostesses, etc.

They're a country without borders that span the globe .. and unless you're part of "the group" (be that C programmers, Ham radio operators, pilots, Code Talkers, et al.) you'll rarely hear their jargon.

> It's an incredibly common well established convention within a group of pilots, controllers, airline workers, hostesses, etc.

In other words, it's _not_ an incredibly common well established convention. Thanks for clarifying my confusion.

Within a group, it is.

Ditto, for example, 'klick' for kilomtre in certain military and gaming circles.

You might argue against "incredibly common" wrt general global population, the counter is that it's incredibly common within a globe spanning subgroup.

You'd fail to make the case against "well established" unless you'd care to argue that jargon of some five+ decades isn't well established.

I dare say there are conventions that you would argue are common that have near zero reach outside of the USofA .. handegg for example.

Is this site made up of commenters from the "global spanning subgroup" you're referring to? No? Then how is that relevant? Mathematics researchers also span the globe. Would you say that "algebraic variety" is some incredibly common terminology just because it's common within a globe spanning subgroup?

Anyway I think I'll bow out at this point. I'm not finding this discussion especially enlightening.

> Would you say that "algebraic variety" is some incredibly common terminology just because it's common within a globe spanning subgroup?

Leaving aside that it came up often enough back in the early 1980s when I was working on the first draft of Magma (known then as Cayley) and having discussions with John Cannon, Charles Leedham-Green and George Havas, I would not say that it's as common among mathematicians to use the term as it is among air travellers and pilots to use city codes.

All air travel workers deal with destination codes, generally on a daily basis.

Not all mathematicians work with Abstract Algebras.

> I'm not finding this discussion especially enlightening.

Agreed. Your example certainly struggled for relevance.

It's funny you take issue with my example because it's apparently not as common amongst "mathematicians" as the other terminology is amongst air travel workers. Of course, the terminology "algebraic variety" _is_ common amongst the subgroup of mathematicians who work in abstract algebras (basically by definition). In fact, it's common amongst students studying abstract algebra as well. However you define it, it's certainly a group of people that spans the globe. So it _does_ fit your definition of "incredibly common". I find this funny because I wouldn't consider it common terminology. I guess you've shown me that it really is.

Anyway I think most people mean "common" to say "you have some reasonable expectation that it will be understood". That's what I certainly mean. So yeah I think I'll stick with my original point here:

> In other words, it's _not_ an incredibly common well established convention. Thanks for clarifying my confusion.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38530035

Anyway I'll have to log out after this comment since I feel myself getting dumber. Apparently I don't have enough self-control here to extract myself from this discussion in any other way.

Correct. He's ignoring context.

Correct. Locals in Portland call it PDX.