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Comment by funkyy | Hacker News Reader

Pendrive is common across whole English and the non-English speaking world.

There are a hell of a lot of names for them, and I think native speakers of English use a variety: http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?p...

I think most native speakers who aren't technical would pick something from that list which probably doesn't have "USB" in it and then wrap it with "little" and "thing" - eg. "little thumb drive thing".

“a USB” is common

This may be a regional thing. I have not heard the phrase pen drive in ages.

Everyone I know says flash drive or USB stick or thumb drive, roughly in that order of popularity.

For me its USB/USB drive, Flash Drive, Pen Drive and then I hardly hear Thumb Drive at all.

It was pretty common name when USB was new and general population had no clue what it was.

As a resident of the English speaking world I'm going to have to disagree with you.

UK and Ireland are pendrive friendly. It is not the most popular word but used here and there - thus I said common.

When talking to some of the US customers they use it as well. It is not as popular as USB stick or Flash drive, but still quite common.

Where? No one in my acquaintance (GTA/SV/NYC) has ever used the term "pen drive".

UK, Ireland, many customers from US/Australia. Many European customers.

Maybe you are talking about tech people. I am talking about mix.

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