It's interesting that the English language, around 500 years ago when it was first written down, was made up of simple, one-syllable words.
We still use those words.
Any short word that is spelled exactly the way it sounds, has been around that long.
e.g. dog, cat, man, cup, thin, hat, peg, (and of course our 'swear' words)
As our lives became more complicated, and we lived in larger populations and travelled, English inherited a lot of 'foreign' words, and we started to speak a lot faster, squashing words together.
e.g. don't (do not) use (old French) the assassin's (Arabic) cupboard (cup board)
Then, as we 'developed' 'organizations' (notice how the syllable count has gone up!), 'government' and 'bureaucracy' provided us with such long words and so many of them <sigh> that in our faster- and faster-speaking world, using only the initials of those words made them almost speakable again!
QANTAS - the Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service
although over time the original meaning might disappear and
PISA - Primary Industries of South Australia
they only make sense to a 'local' group of people, or even
CTAF - Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (pilots and flight controllers)
are a piece of jargon that only one occupation would understand.
Computing has a lot of 'jargon' acronyms, some becoming common
CPU - Central Processing Unit
and some that are purely technical
VLSI - Very Large Scale Integrated circuit
but from the beginning of computer networks like bulletin boards, to the beginning of the Internet itself, to today, ordinary people like you and me, typing messages onto a keyboard, have been saving themselves time (and having fun) by using acronyms for common phrases (groups of words) we type in
BFN - Bye For Now
These hurried but usually friendly acronyms are used most in online live chat
(IRC - Internet Relay Chat
for information and software check out the Austnet IRC website)
and in email (electronic mail)
(for information and software check out the Eudora website)
and in posting to newsgroups
(for information and software check out an Introduction to 'Usenet' and newsgroups)
Use it wherever it suits you personally.
| ADN | Any day now |
| AFAIK | As Far As I Know |
| AWGTHTGTTA? | Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again? |
| BFN | Bye For Now |
| BBS | Bulletin Board System |
| BTW | By The Way |
| CU | See You |
| CUL | See You Later |
| CUL8R | See you later |
| DIIK | Damned if I know |
| FITB | Fill In The Blank.... |
| FWIW | For What It's Worth |
| FYI | For Your Information |
| GD&R | Grinning, ducking & running (usually left at the end of a digging message) |
| GROK | As in "I GROK" means thorough understanding. From R.A. Heinlin's book |
| GIWIST | Gee I Wish I'd Said That |
| IC | I See |
| IMHO | In My Humble Opinion |
| IMNSHO | In My Not So Humble Opinion |
| IOW | In Other Words |
| JSNM | Just Stark Naked Magic |
| L8R | Later |
| LOL | Laughing Out Loud |
| LTUAE | Life, The Universe And Everything |
| OIC | Oh, I see |
| OTOH | On The Other Hand |
| POV | Point Of View |
| ROTFL | Rolling On The Floor Laughing |
| RSN | Real Soon Now |
| RTM | Read The Manual |
| SYSOP | System Operator |
| TANJ | There Ain't No Justice |
| TANSTAAFL | There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch |
| TPTB | The Powers That Be |
| TTBOMK | To The Best Of My Knowledge |
| TTFN | Ta Ta For Now |
| TTUL | Talk To You Later |
| WYSIWYG | What you see is what you get (originally from DeskTop Publishing, DTP) |
| AMF | Goodbye (Adios Mutha-......) |
| FROPPED | F..king dROPPED |
| FYBITS | F..k You, Buddy, I'm The Sysop |
| LAB&TYD | Life's A Bitch & Then You Die |
| NBFD | No Big F***ing Deal |
| OFTPATHIRIO | Oh F..k This Place And The Horse It Rode In On! |
| PFM | Pure F***ing Magic |
| PITA | Pain In The Arse |
| RTFM | Read The F..k... Manual (from very frustrated tech support!) |
| WTF | What the F*** |
I'd rather eat ground glass than use Word6 any longer :-(you're such a weirdo :)
| :-) | Smiling, happy face; don't take me too seriously |
| B-) | Above, but poster (person writing) wears glasses or sunglasses |
| 8-) | Same as previous; also used to denote wide-eyed look |
| :-( | Sad or angry face |
| ;-) | Winking happy face (something said tongue-in-cheek)(my personal favourite!) |
| :-)))) | Either lots of grins or lots of chins! |
| :-P | Tongue stuck out |
| :-b | Same as previous |
| :-D | Wider happy face (or mouth open too much) |
| (:-* | Kiss... |
| (:-( | Message indicating person is VERY sad... |
| @%&$%& | You know what that means... |
| (-_-) | Secret smile |
| @>--->---- | A rose |
| #:-) | :-) done by someone with sort of matted hair |
| @= | Flame (angry message) about nuclear war, power or weapons follows (mushroom cloud) |
| :-o | "Oh, nooooooo!" (a la Mr. Bill) |
| #:-o | Same as previous |
| (:-) | Messages dealing with bicycle helmets |
| <:-) | Dumb questions |
| oo | "Somebody's head-lights are on" messages |
| O>-<|= | Messages of interest to women |
| |-( | Late night messages |
| :^) | Messages teasing people about their noses |
| :-{#} | Messages teasing people about their braces |
| (:-# | Message concerning something that shouldn't have been said... |
| (:-$ | Message indicating person is ill... |
| (:-& | Message indicating person is angry... |
| (:^( | Message concerning people with broken noses |
| (:<) | Message concerning blabber mouths |
| :-(=) | Message about people with big teeth |
| &:-) | Message from a person with curly hair |
| @:-) | Message from a person with wavy hair |
| ?-( | Message about people with a black eye |
| *:* | Message about fuzzy things |
| *:** | Message about fuzzy people with a fuzzy mustache |
| %-) | Message about people with broken glasses |
| +<:-| | Message from a monk/nun... |
| {0-) | Message from cyclops... |
| (:-D | Message concerning another blabber mouth... |
| (:-|K- | Formal message (love the bow tie) |
| B-) | Message from Batman !!! |
| ...---... | S.O.S. (morse code: 3 short, 3 long, 3 short) |
| ||*( | Handshake offered |
| ||*) | Handshake accepted |
| <&&> | Message concerning rubber chickens |
| >< >< | Message about/to someone wearing argyle socks |
| 2B|^2B | Message about Shakespeare (programming language: | means "or" and ^ means "not"; gotta pay that one ;-) |
| <{:-)} | Message in a bottle... |
| <:-)<<| | Message from a space rocket... |
| (:-... | Heart-breaking message... |
| <<<<(:-) | Message from a hat sales-man... |
| (O--< | A fishy message... |
| (8-) | Message from a four-eye... |
| (:>-< | Message from a thief: hands up! |
| :^{ | User wears a mustache |
| { | User is Alfred Hitchcock |
| (.)(.) | Ms. Dos (possibly a female mascot of the MS-DOS operating system) |
| ()x() | Ms. Dos with "Cross Your Heart" Bra |
