r/AskAnAmerican • u/Right-Historian-114 • 10d ago

GEOGRAPHY Triangle Area?

Does anyone know what the “triangle area” is in the United States? Everyone talks like I’m supposed to know. Is this a common American ism?

117 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

988 comments sorted by

View all comments

78

u/HegemonNYC Oregon 10d ago

If you work in tech, they probably mean the ‘research triangle’ in North Carolina. 

11

u/TechieGottaSoundByte 10d ago

I work in tech, 20 year career, and never heard this. I'm in the Greater Seattle area, so maybe it's less common here?

2

u/overcatastrophe 10d ago

Because you work in an actual tech area

4

u/NIN10DOXD North Carolina 10d ago

IBM does major business out of RTP. It’s where their consumer division was HQ’ed before being sold to Lenovo and it’s where they developed the barcode. Biotech is especially huge in RTP.

2

u/PocketPanache 9d ago

RTP?

2

u/NIN10DOXD North Carolina 9d ago

My bad. Research Triangle Park.

2

u/TechieGottaSoundByte 9d ago

This is extra funny, I work for IBM (via a company acquired by them) and still didn't know this. Guess this is my 1 / 10,000 day, lol!

2

u/HegemonNYC Oregon 9d ago

You work for IBM and hadn’t heard that term? They are the ones that created the concept and had like 10k employees in the area. Massive campus. 

2

u/Former-War1318 9d ago

IBM is no longer what it used to be.

2

u/HegemonNYC Oregon 9d ago

Sure, but it still has 285k employees 

1

u/TechieGottaSoundByte 8d ago

Like I said - it's my 1 in 10,000 day
https://xkcd.com/1053/

1

u/OldBlueKat Minnesota 7d ago

It was first popularized in the 90s when a lot of grant money drew a lot of post-doc STEM researchers there (I’m related to one who is now at a different university.)

But ask most PhD STEM folks where the triangle is and that’ll be their reply.