On my Linux box, when I type
$ cd ~/Des[TAB]
it completes to ~/Desktop/.
But in OSX terminal doing the same thing expands to /Users/username/Desktop/.
This appears rather annoying to me as it 'jumps' and also takes more space. Can I somehow get the former behaviour?
I hadn't ever picked up on this behavior before, but my shell on OS X shows the former behavior (expanding cd ~/Des[TAB] to cd ~/Desktop/). Unfortunately I don't have a good answer as to why. Dumb luck, I guess.
That said, here is a similar thread that discusses some ways to turn it off. Additionally, here is another in-depth discussion talking about the Linux-y way to enable/disable the feature. Hope one of 'em works for you.