Two countries separated by a common language. And a lot of fish.
I’m not surprised that differences exist, as these are common between English and Amerenglish. I find it strange that USAians settled on terms which are complex in formation - GPS and cell phone. Usually popular terms settle on either a brand name or a simple descriptive name.
Satnav became the popular name over here because it is intuitive - satellite navigation as opposed to maps or seeking directions. Same with mobiles - phones you can move around with.
As you will see from my note, I acknowledge that we use ATM and I accept that this is not a simple description. I think it is because we were taught to use that abbreviation when the machines were introduced. Indeed, few people know that it is short for automated teller machines.
So, I wondered if the same applied to GPS and to cell phones in USA. Were people trained to use the terms when they were first marketed?
My experience differs, although satnav is by far the more common term, I have heard GPS here for the same item.
I don’t know what you mean by “trained.” The term “GPS” was popularly known decades before the navigation devices were commonly available for individual private cars.
As for “cell phone,” I can’t recall all the details of the evolution, but the term “mobile phone” was in use at least back to the '70s. By the early '90s, people had mobile phones and “car phones.” “Cell phones” were distinguishable because they were a lot more portable than the old mobile phones and car phones.
I’m not sure how “GPS” as short for “Global Positioning System” is all that much less intuitive than “satnav.”
I also suspect that the military and commercial use of GPS for decades before dashboard car navigation systems became common has a lot to do with it. For example, were European militaries and surveyors using GPS back in the 1980s? US ones were, and it was called GPS, so I suspect it just had enough critical mass to stick in public usage thereafter.
I was active into geocaching a while back when the r was added. Some objected to use the term GPS because they said it stood for global positing satellite, and that it didn’t make sense to say you have a new global positing satellite, so the r was added to add receiver.
Since then the world has moved on to where GPS stands for global positing system, and geocaching has been left behind and stuck with GPSr.
Moral of the story, don’t nitpick :eek::D:p