Internet Slang

Internet Slang

Internet users have developed many slang terms over the years. Most of these are not actually acronyms as they cannot be pronounced, but that is what they are called nonetheless. Many of these terms originated for saving keystrokes and are often written in lower case:

• AFAIC — “as far as I’m concerned”, or “as far as I care”, or “as far as I can…”
• AFAIK — “as far as I know”
• AFAIR — “as far as I recall”, or “as far as I remember”
• AFK — “away from keyboard”
• ASAP — “as soon as possible”
• BBL — “be back later”
• BBS — “be back soon”
• BFD — “big fucking deal”
• BRB — “be right back” (usually used in chats and on an instant messenger service).
• BTW — “by the way”
• B2B — “Business to Business”
• C&V — Chapter & Verse. Used in newsgroups.
• C|N>K — a Unix -ism meaning “coffee through nose into keyboard”
• cya — “see you”, used as a goodbye.
• CU — “see you”, used as a goodbye.
• CYS — “Check your settings”. A phrase often said by technical support staff of a certain Australian ISP.
• FAQ — “Frequently Asked Question”
• FFS — “for fuck’s sake!”
• FOAF — “friend of a friend”, i.e. the dubious attribution given to urban legends
• FYI — “for your information”
• G2G — “got to go”. Used in chatrooms.
• GAGF — “go and get fucked”
• GFY — “good for you” or “go fuck yourself”. The use of this acronym is ambigious and not recommended.
• GG — “good going” or “good game”. Used sincerely in online games such as trivia, but more often used sarcastically when someone has done something foolish. Also, it is now becoming customary for all players to say “gg” when the game is over in such games as Counter-Strike , unless a player is profoundly displeased with the outcome.
• GJ — Good Job
• HAND — “have a nice day”
• HTH — “hope this helps”
• IANAL — “I am not a lawyer”. Usually used before a non-lawyer gives legal advice, as a humorous disclaimer.
• IANARS — “I am not a rocket scientist”
• IC — “I see”, also, “in character” in MUDs and role-playing games .
  ICYDK / ICYDN / ICUDK — “In case you didn’t know.”
• IIRC — “if I recall correctly” c.f. ISTR
• IMHO — “in my humble opinion” / “in my honest opinion”
• IMO — “in my opinion”
• IMNSHO — “in my not-so-humble opinion”
• IRC — “Internet Relay Chat”
• IRL – “in real life”. Used in MUD settings.
• ISTR — “I seem to recall” (i.e. I’m not really sure) c.f. IIRC
• IYDMMA — “if you don’t mind me asking”, for ex., “IYDMMA, are you a virgin?”
• JJ or JK (j/k) — “just joking”, “just kidding”
• Joo — synonym of you. Also spelled j00 with a lower case j and two zeroes rather than two O’s.
• JOOC — “just out of curiosity”
• k — short for “OK”
• l8 — a shorthand spelling of “late”.
• l8r — a shorthand spelling of “later”, meaning “see you later” (see leet )
  LIEK — synonym of like, as in “I like that website”.
• LMAO — “laughing my ass off”
• LOL — “laughing out loud”, or “lots of laughs” (a reply to something amusing)
• MYOB — “mind your own business”
• NM (n/m) — “never mind” or “not much”
• NOYB — “none of your business”
• NP — “No Problem”
• NSFW — “Not safe for work.” Material (pictures, webpages) not suitable for the office, but for the home instead. Used by Fark . See SFW.
• NT — “No Text”, used on Internet forums or Usenet to indicate that a post has no content
• O — “oh”
• OIC — “oh, I see”
• OMG — Exclamation, “Oh my God!!”
• OMFG — Exclamation, “Oh my fucking God!!”
• OMFL — Exclamation, “Oh my fucking lag!”
• OOC — “out-of-character”. Used on MUDs and other role-playing games . Also, “out of curiosity.”
• OT — “off topic”
• OTOH — “on the other hand”
• own – to defeat someone (used commonly when playing Counter-Strike ) or to humiliate someone tactically in a debate; something that is extremely cool (ex. BMWs totally own).
• PFO — “please fuck off”
• PITA — “pain in the ass”
• PO (PO’d) — “piss off” (“pissed off”)
• prog — “computer program” (progz in plural)
• prolly — contracted form of “probably”
• plz — shorthand spelling of “please”
• Pwn — step up of the word own. To “Pwn something” means to have complete control over it, and to be “Pwned by something” means to be dominated by it. (see leet )
  P2P — Person to Person
• qoolz — something that is “cool” in the American sense.
• R — shorthand spelling of “are”
• RL — “real life”. Used in MUD settings.
• ROFL (or ROTFL) — “rolling on the floor laughing” (a reply to something extremely amusing).
• ROFLMAO (or ROTFLMAO) — “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off”
• r0x0rz — leet speaks for “rocks”
• RTFA — “read the fucking article” applies mostly to Slashdot threads, for users who make comments on a story without having read it first.
• RTFM — “read the fucking manual” (often sanitized to “read the fine manual”). The frequent reply to a request for basic help from newbies who have not attempted to find the answer for themselves.
• RU — Are You?
• R8 — right
• SFW — “Safe for work.” Material (pictures, webpages) that is safe for the office. Used by Fark . See NSFW.
• STFU — “shut the fuck up”
• sux0rs — leet speak for “sucks”
• TBH — “to be honest”
• thx — shorthand spelling of “thanks” – this can be combined into “kthx” (OK, thanks), “plzkthx” (Please, OK, thanks), and “kthxbye” (OK, thanks, goodbye)
• TTFN — Ta Ta For Now
• TIA — “thanks in advance”
• TTYL — “talk to you later”
• U — a shorthand spelling of “you”
• ur — a shorthand spelling of “you’re”
• w/e — slang/abbreviation for whatever
• w/o — without
• WDUWTA —- “what do u wanna talk about?”
• WTF — “what the fuck?”
• YMMV — ” Your mileage may vary ” (you may see different results)
• w00t — exclamation of excitement or happiness; closely related to, “hell yea!” (short for woohoo) or We Owned the Other Team
• w8 — shorthand spelling of “wait”.
• X > * — definition of something [X] is better than everything [*].
• <3 — “love” (made from the ASCII-art heart between the less than symbol and the three). Ex: I <3 you.
• 2B – To be
• 4 – for

Others express concepts peculiar to the Net:

• cluebie — a newbie with a clue, but not close to a guru.
• guru — an expert in some technical topic, such as as C programming or Unix system administration
• FAQ — frequently asked question, or a list of frequently asked questions with answers. Never seems to be written in small letters.
• flamer — one who ‘flames’; To rant on about some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude or with hostility towards a particular person or group of people. “Flame” is used as a verb (“Don’t flame me for this”), a flame is a single flaming message. Also is likely to relate to the term lamer.
• hijack — go offtopic. done commonly by newbies in forums.
• troll — a person who deliberately stirs up trouble (see article).
• lurker — one who reads an email list or a message board but does not participate in the discussion.
• newbie — a new user. Not a pejorative term (but see RTFM, preceding).
• noob — a new user. Also spelled n00b, with two zeroes rather than two O’s