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Emoticons FYI (HTH)
By Erfert Fenton
IMHO, the deuce's relatively small RAM makes it necessary to use various kludges to view streaming media, even with a DSL connection. :-(
If your response to the sentence above was something along the lines of "Huh???", you might benefit from a quick course in online lingo. When you read comments in Chat, Messenger, or Discuss, you'll sometimes run into abbreviations, slang, symbols, or technical terms that you don't understand. This article will help you make your way through the insider terms that pepper online communications.
Short and sweet
In many cases, people use abbreviations so they can type quickly, especially when they're participating in a chat or using Messenger, where a "real-time" conversation is taking place. For example, it's a lot quicker to type "IMHO" than "In my humble opinion." Although these abbreviations come in particularly handy in quick, back-and-forth conversations like Chat and Messenger, they also make their way into more leisurely forms of conversation such as e-mail and discussion boards.
For a more extensive list of abbreviations, try Melissa Kaplan's list of abbreviations used in e-mail and posts. (As a bonus, Ms. Kaplan's site also offers lots of information on caring for reptiles and amphibians. You gotta love the Internet!)
Tip: FYI, abbreviated terms are usually typed in capital letters.
If you're online and see an abbreviation you don't know, there are lots of ways for you to find out what it means.
- If you're in a chat room and see a mystery abbreviation in the conversation, it's perfectly OK for you to ask what it means. Most people are glad to help out a "newbie." If you're shy about asking your question in the room, most chat services let you "whisper" a private comment to a single person; you can whisper your question to the person who typed the abbreviation.
- If you're shy about asking questions, there are plenty of resources where you can look up abbreviations. A few are listed here. (To see which ones you like best, try looking up an abbreviation such as ROTFL or TTFN.)
In addition to allowing people to type messages faster, abbreviations can convey a sense of emotion in the otherwise deadpan world of text. For example, "LOL" (Laughing out loud) lets someone know you thought their comment was funny. Another way to convey emotion in typed messages is by using emoticons (also called smileys).
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:-)
Emoticons have been around for a long time. Most people have seen the familiar shorthand for a smile. :-) (Tip: Tilt your head to the left for optimum effect.) For lists of common emoticons, try the following sites:
For even more information, including a history of emoticons, see Wikipedia's article on Emoticons.
These resources should help you figure out just about any abbreviation or emoticon you see online. Now we'll tackle specialized terminology.
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Learning the lingo
In discussion groups or chat rooms, certain communities have their own lingo. If you don't understand a term, feel free to ask people in the group or room.
When it comes to technical terms that refer to the Internet, computers, or MSN TV, try the following resources:
With the resources presented here at your disposal, you should have no trouble understanding the first sentence of this article, as well as similar jargon you run into in Chat, Discuss, or Messenger.
TTFN! ;-)
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