Interestingly (or not) it’s also used in French but only in one case that I’m aware of. Monsieur is abbreviated to M. while messieurs (plural) is MM.
Comment on Mexican President Threatens to Sue Google Over 'Gulf of America' Label on Maps.
billwashere@lemmy.world 4 months agoTIL…
The abbreviation E.E.U.U. (often written as EE. UU.) stands for Estados Unidos (United States) in Spanish. This abbreviation follows a grammatical rule in Spanish where doubling the initial letters of each word indicates plurality
So you taught me something today I did not know. Thank you!!
riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
I always wondered why it had double letters. Thank you!
lolrightythen@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Just let our mexican and Canadian neighbors take over the USA. We’ve proven to be unworthy of making wise choices.
echodot@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Wait what do they call the European Union then because that’s still EU in Spanish as well.
Jrockwar@feddit.uk 4 months ago
It’s UE in Spanish, from Unión Europea. (Non-doubled letters because it’s a single Union, there’s no plural like in “States”).
Sometimes people in Spain do use the English acronyms for both EU/USA, but I don’t think I’ve seen it often. Both UE and EEUU are more common from what I’ve seen, and also people rarely say these out loud, it’s exclusively a written language problem.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
See, I learned this in Spanish class in my American high school, and I don’t think that linguistic fact stuck with me! Thanks
clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That rule existed in Portuguese as well, but they dropped that as indication of plurality is just… wasteful