Internet slang

Internet slang consists of slang that users of the Internet have developed and utilized. Many of its terms originated with the purpose of saving keystrokes, (for example, "u" for "you", "r" for "are", "4" for "for", etc.) as a result many use the same abbreviations in text messages (see txt). The terms often appear in lower case, with capitals often reserved for emphasis — the pronoun "I", for example, often appears simply as "i".

Common disclaimer phrases (or parentheticals) also often contract into acronyms — they tend to occur at certain points in a sentence, which can facilitate decoding. Some of these include:

• IMHO (in my humble/honest opinion)
• AFAIK (as far as I know)
• IANAL (I am not a lawyer)
• AFK (Away from Keyboard)

The untrained eye often finds Internet slang difficult to interpret because content in spoken language that speakers convey in the intonation and tone of the voice, such as sarcasm, do not readily transfer to written text.

Emoticons (or smilies) such as ":)" can go some way towards clarifying emotional intent in Internet messages. As with other Internet slang, netizens may use emoticons both genuinely and sarcastically; for example the ":-P" emoticon, which can express either genuine amusement and a sense of fun, or express a negative sarcastic comment on something another user might have said.

Certain online personalities, among them Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade, have begun to decry the usage of Internet slang, going so far as to refer to it as "the crude truncations of the lower classes." [1]

Although Internet slang has a close relationship with leetspeak, only online gamers traditionally used leet, whereas much larger groups of Internet users commonly use Internet slang.

Chat acronyms or chaq (pronounced "chalk") originally developed on pre-Internet bulletin board systems. A handful (for example, ASAP, PO'ed) far pre-date computers. The three-letter acronym (TLA) remains one of the most popular types of abbreviation in computing and telecom terminology and slang. Similar systems have since come into use with users of text-messaging wireless telephones.

Contexts

Internet slang occurs in various means of electronic communication. In order of most to least frequent use:

• Text messaging on cell phones involves slang even more heavily abbreviated than Internet slang, due largely to the relatively inefficient text-entry method.
• Instant messaging provides a very common medium of use, since brevity forms an important part of communication in this environment. Emoticons often convey emotions in instant messaging.
• Chatrooms, especially those connected to instant messaging, often use abbreviations and emoticons.
• Chatrooms on IRC sometimes use abbreviations, and more frequently lowercase text (for speed) and emoticons. IRC-users often employ emoticons to express sarcasm.
• A few Internet forums use Internet slang. This may happen for the sake of speed, as in forums like FaceTheJury; or, on forums where more "proper" grammar prevails, it may give a sarcastic tone to speech, such as FYAD on the Something Awful Forums. Forum-based slang tends to appear more specialized and localized than other types of slang.

Internet abbreviations evolve and change continually. Online games provide a good place to observe language variation in use. Often, people uninterested in computer programming do not understand the more classically "nerdy" phrases like "2B||!2B" (which means "to be, or not to be"), thus they become useless or appear only in minority forums.

Common Internet slang

The vocabulary of Internet slang draws from many different sources — typically environments that placed value on brevity of communication. Some terms, such as FUBAR have roots as far back as World War II[2]. Other terms come from more recent forms of communication, such as TTY and IRC. With the rise of instant messaging services (ICQ, AOL, and MSN, among others) the vocabulary has expanded dramatically. Some of the most commonly occurring elements of this slang include:

• lol – laugh(ing) out loud/laugh on line/lots of laughs
• brb – be right back/bathroom break
• gtg/g2g – got to go
• l8r or cul8r – (see you) later
• lmao – laugh(ing) my ass/arse off.
• rofl – rolling on floor laughing
• sry – sorry
• cya or cu – see you
• ty – thank you
• gg/gj – good game/good job
• ttyl – talk to you later
• bbl – be back later
• thx/tx/tnx – thanks
• ihm – i hate myself
• wombat – Waste of Money, Brains, and Time
• nm – Not much (sometimes never mind)
• nvm – Never mind

Aside from instant messaging programs another realm full of online languages exists: the Internet gaming world. One of the most popular forms of video game slang has become known as H4X0R or as 13375P34K (in leetspeak). For parents today, learning the online language can play an important role in maintaining the online safety of children. An article produced by Microsoft may help parents begin to understand some of the things their kids say in-game. (Many of the more knowledgeable "geeks" consider this article a joke, especially for Microsoft's attempts to interpret 1337 speak.)

The following lists could usefully expand to include citations of the earliest usage, where references exist.

Special characters

• (>")> / (>'.')> — 'Kirby'
• <(Ò_Ó<) — Kirby's mad.
• ¬<(Ò_Ó<) — Kirby's mad and he's got a gun!
• ^H — Signifies pressing the backspace key. "What an idio^H^H^H^Hinsightful comment!" (Stems from the use of Ctrl + H as backspace in some Unix shells)
• ^W — Similarly, this means erasing the last word. "I mean, who really gives a^W^W cares?"
• > — Greater than (as in "Linux > Windows" or "Windows > Linux"). Use of an asterisk (*) in this context sometimes denotes a wildcard, for example,. "John > *" means "John is greater than all". (Depending on context, the reader may substitute the word "owns" in place of the phrase "is greater than". Another possible interpretation here may state: "John is better than all")
• ^ ^ or ^__^ or ^^ — an emoticon signifying happiness, especially used by anime fans. "Chuckle marks"
• >_< or >< — an emoticon signifying frustration or embarrassment
• >_> — an emoticon used to indicate sarcasm or suspicion, sometimes used with <_< to indicate shifty eyes
• T__T or TT_TT — Crying (often implying crying in a humorous way)
• :3 — cat face
• =^_^= — same as above
• \,,/ or \m/ — Throwing the horns
• u_u — sad
• x__x — dead, unconscious, etc.
• ^__~ — wink, reluctant
• @_@ — symbol for a very tired person trying to stay awake, going crazy, dizzy.
• $_$ — Money-hungry
• :-) — smiley face (as with many things in computerspeak, the reader should view this emoticon sideways)
• ;-) — winking

Emoticons

For an analytical discussion of emoticons, see emoticon.

Commonly-used emoticons include:

• :) — Used to express happiness or content
• :( — Used to express sadness or discontent
• :O — Used to express surprise or a sarcastic display of surprise
• :/ — Used to express indifference
• :o) — Used to express forum users' ignorance and vanity
• :D — Used to express strong happiness or joy
• >:( — Used to express strong anger or discontent
• >:D — Used to express malicious joy
• >:) — Used to express malicious contentment
• -__- — disgusted, annoyed, etc.
• ^o^ — laughing, cheerful, joyous, similar to ^^
• ^^__^^ — Angel
• (^_^) — Happy face
• [*_*] — Scared, in awe
• ><)))*> — something appears fishy
• =^__^= — Cat face, blushing
• -^__^- — Blushing
• ^__^' — Embarassed, "Sweatdrop", common among anime fans
• ^__^; — Embarassed, "Sweatdrop" common among anime fans
• nn\\//o {|^.^|} o\\//nn — Headphone listening (peaceful)
• \nn/ {|^.^|} \nn/ — Headphone listening (intensively)
• ^///^ — Another form of blushing
• =_= — tired, with bags under eyes
• <^__^;> — symbol for embarrassment commonly used by anime fans
• _|_ — an offensive emoticon signifying the middle finger
• _W_ — "Whatever", "I do not care"
• ‹^› — another form of the middle finger
• ..i.. — yet another form of the middle finger (often seen in pairs)
• ..!., — another form of the now infamous middle finger
• t('-'t) — Flipping off with both hands (the "double deuce").
• <3 — "love"; ASCII art for a heart, the less-than symbol and the three resemble a heart tilted on its side.
• </3 — "hate"; ASCII art for a broken heart, similar to <3.
• == — agreement; from the C equality operator; means "me too" or "what he said"
• != — disagreement; from the C inequality operator; means "is not (necessarily) the same as" Sometimes also written as =/= as in mathematical notation.
• ++ — Used after the manner of the C operator to indicate something "one greater" than itself, for example: "Awesome++"; also used similarly to the "doubleplus" prefix in Newspeak.
• -- — Opposite of ++, indicating something "one less" than itself.
• @ — "at". Some users go so far as to replace all "at" sounds in words with @, so "that" becomes "th@" and "cat" becomes "c@", for example. This occurs relatively rarely.
• * (asterisk) — applied around a word or phrase to indicate emphasis or italics, or just typing in bold face. Singly, in chat, in front of a word or phrase at the beginning of a line means a correction to one's own previous typo. It recently started being used for an action. E.G *Jumps up and down*
• _ (underscore) — similar to asterisk, but means underlining of a word or phrase. For example, "Do you _really_ think that?"
• / (forward slash) — indicates italicized text, similar to the underscore for underlined text
• -0_o- — an emotion expressing confusion, shock, drunkenness or a "high" state
• 0.o — an emoticon expressing confusion or shock, signifying the user saying "WHAT!?!?"; also designating a drunken or high state
• d(-_-)b — a face with headphones on that indicates listening or chilling out to music
• Ô_ô — an emotion expressing confusion, shock, drunkenness or a "high" state
• 9_9 — rolling eyes, used to express annoyance
• XD — Laughing, Crossed Eyes
• XP — Sticking Tongue Out while Laughing, crossed eyes
• :O — "Oh" Emoticon
• :O~ — Drooling, foaming from the mouth. Commonly used when admiring something.
• \o/ or \^o^/ — the 'yayman', representing the pose that someone with something to celebrate might adopt. In contexts such as forums, where small images replace emoticons, some type of happy emoticon image often replaces the 'o'.
• \ob — similar to the yayman, the 'b' represents a thumbs-up.
• /o\ — more or less the opposite of the yayman, here the figure puts his hands on his head: 'Oh no!'
• !!!111!!!11!!!11One — making fun of noobs/newbs/n00bs on the net; or making fun of AOL people (placed at the end of a sentence)
• !?!? or ?!?! or !? or ?! — showing surprise and confusion; this basically expresses anger, shock/surprise, or confusion, and rarely speechlessness
• ajkaf;lsdjfjdskl;afj (any random string of lowercase characters, usually from the keys in home position on the keyboard) — hysterical laughter
• (Y) — female genitalia
• (.)(.)— breasts
• (oYo) — another form of breasts (fullstops may replace the "o"-symbols)
• (*)(*)— breasts (augmented)
• 8==> — male genitalia
• {}==[]:::::::::::::::> — sword
• >>>-------------> — arrow
• _ — showing suspicion or distrust
• <@(((>< — A fish
• *_* or *.* or even *o* — admired; in awe; or, distracted by something shiny.
• ∙ ---»(X_x)«---o(°_°t) — One person shooting another while flicking them off. The eyes characteristic to the shooter, as non-keyboard characters, often do not appear. Likewise the double chevrons used to portray blood, and the bullet point representing the bullet. The hyphens merely represent the bullet's path.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Numbers

10-4

"OK, Acknowledgement", as in the CB Radio 10-codes.

12B, 1AB

"Wannabe"

10q

"Thank you"

10x

"Thanks"

1337

"Leet", short for élite, often used ironically.

143

"I love you"

20

"location"; from CB Radio jargon

224

"today, tomorrow, forever"

2B

"to be"

2B||!2B

"to be or not to be"; from the C programming language logic operations "OR" ("||") and "NOT" ("!").

2m

"tomorrow"

2TM

"to the max"

31337

"elite", often used ironically

3Q, 39, 3U, or 999

"thank you" (Japanese wordplay for "thank you", rendered in katakana as サンキュー and pronounced sankyū' ("3" substitutes for san and "9" for kyu)

4

"for"

404

"Couldn't find it", "Clueless" (from the HTTP 404 "Error: Resource not found" response code)

4649

"pleased to meet you", "hi" (from Japanese "yoroshiku", the four numbers can be pronounced yo-ro-shi-ku)

46

"pleased to meet you" "hi" (short version of 4649)

4ever, 4eva

"forever"

5/5

"five by five"

54

"To ignore", from Mandarin Chinese "wu shi" (無視). Mandarin Chinese speakers pronounce the numbers "5" and "4" to "無" and "視" respectively in Mandarin Chinese.

69

from the 69 sex position. Often appears as part of AIM screennames

666

The triple sixes sequence often represents Satan, on and off of the Internet. It often occurs in screennames.

7

When pronounced in Cantonese, it sounds very close to the Cantonese foul, "柒" - used when someone has done something stupid or to refer to someone who looks or dresses ugly

8O~

Crazy, lost in the mind, drooling in true desire over something.

8008135

1337 for "boobies".

807, 8075

"BOT(s)"; a person who demonstrates an extreme lack of knowledge or common sense. Originally deriving from forum or instant message bots, which often respond to pre-programmed keywords and commonly-used phrases humorously, without really making any coherent sense

88, 881 or 886

"bye bye" (Chinese pronunciation). In some racist chat rooms it means "heil Hitler", because the letter "H" comes eighth in most Roman alphabets

9494

"that's it", "that's right", "you see?" (Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, short for 就是)

A

ACK

"acknowledged", used frequently in discussion boards

admin

short for "administrator", a system administrator or forum moderator, among other possibilities

AFAIC

"as far as I'm concerned", or "as far as I care", or "as far as I can..."

AFAICS

"as far as I can see"

AFAICT

"as far as I can tell"

AFAIK

"as far as I know"

AFAIR

"as far as I recall", or "as far as I remember"

AFC, AFK

"away from computer or keyboard"

AFGE

"another fucking growth experience"

AFK

"away from keyboard", usually in the form <AFK> in one's handle, or "a free kill" in many FPS video games

APG

"Anti PiratGruppen", the Danish analogue of the RIAA

AICMFP

"and I claim my five pounds"

AIM

"AOL Instant Messenger"

AIUI

"As I understand it"

aka

"also known as" (predates the Internet)

anon

"anonymous"

AO

Anarchy Online, a popular MMORPG

AOHell

Derogative term for America Online (AOL)

ASAP

"as soon as possible"

aswom

An intentional misspelling of "awesome" generally used for comedic purposes

ASL

"Age, sex, location"; used to request general information about a fellow user. Also used as an introductory phrase, usually when expecting that information up-front. Some consider this request rude.

ATM

"At the moment"

ATOP

"At time of posting"

ATTN

"Attention"

AUP

"Acceptable Use Policy"

AWOL

"Absent Without Leave" (pre-dates the Internet)

AYBABTU

"All your base are belong to us"

Azn

abbreviation for "Asian"

B

B

"Bye"

B&

"Banned"

B2B

"business to business"; ecommerce used by businesses to interact with other businesses. It can also mean "bad to the bone".

B4

"Before"

B4N

"Bye for now"

B7

"Banned" - A derivation of B&, minus the shift key.

B10

"Beaten" - Usually said in response to someone beating you to making a particular comment on a forum.

Ban;

to deny a particular user access to an Internet resource, typically due to TOS violations.

BB

"Bye bye"

BBIAB

"Be back in a bit"

BBIAW

"Be back in a while"

BBL

"Be back later"

BBQ

"Be back quick", eventually corrupted to "Bar-B-Que" — see "OMGWTFBBQ".

BBS

"Be back soon", or "bulletin board system/service"

BBT

"Bubble Tea"

BBW

"be back whenever"

BC, B/C

"Because"

Bewt

"Boot" Often used as "Lewt fast 'n' Bewt ass".

BIO

"Bio Break, Biological Break, Bathroom Break" (Usually used following the BRB abbreviation)

B00lean!

A term adapted for the use of annoyance - when spoken the B00 in b00lean becomes exaggerated to make this annoying term

B00t

Opposite of "w00t". Can also describe kicking people from game or chat servers

BF

"Boyfriend"

BFD

"Big fucking deal"

BFF

"Best friend forever"

BFG/BFG9000

"Big Fucking Gun (9000)" (found in id Software games such as Doom)

BFN

"Bye for now"

BGS

An institution responsible for the creation of various colloquialisms, such as dede, dedish and ngaaah

BJ

blowjob

BL

"Bad luck"

BLNT

"Better luck next time"

Blog

Short for "weblog" from "Web log". Often used as a verb, as in "I was blogging today".

blogger

"Web logger": someone who writes or posts articles or messages on a blog.

BNOL

"Be nice or leave"

BNF

"Big Name Fan"

BOFH

"Bastard operator from hell". A series of funny stories about UNIX system administration written by Simon Travaglia.

BOHICA

"Bend over, here it comes again." Originally U.S. Army slang.

B0rk, b0rked, to b0rk

broken, to break. A b0rked system refuses to work.

BRB

"Be right back"

BS

"Bullshit". battle.net specific: backstab. EVE Online specific: Battleship"

BSOD

"Blue screen of death"

BT

"Big talk" as in big talk and no work

BTDT

"Been there, done that"

BTTT

"back to the top"

btw or BTW

"by the way"

BTW (2)

"Better Than Working", refers to an activity that can be done at work that is better than working. Like reading a blog or a humorous website, etc...

Bump

to comment for the sole purpose of bringing a thread to the top of the page. Used in forums.

BURMA

"Be Undressed Ready My Angel" (dates back to World War II; pre-Internet)

BUTTSECKS

Alternative spelling to "Buttsex", often used in the phrase "Y HELO THAR, BUTTSECKS?".

BW

"bandwidth" battle.net specific: broodwar.

B/T, BT

"Between" or the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol.

BYOC

"Bring your own computer". Often used in connection with computer gaming events. May also stand for Build Your Own Computer. For example, Quakecon is a BYOC Lan Party in North America.

C

• Careface — as in "I don't care".
• CBA; Can't be Arsed
• CBF: Can't be fucked
• Cec — "sex", used to get around Internet chat filters.
• Chown (Ch0wn3d) — a deliberate mis-spelling of "own" (see "own" entry below). Also "changing ownership"; as derived from the UNIX chown command.
• CID — "Consider it done"
• CiS — "Chuckle(ing) in Silence", "chuckling very quietly"; as an alternative to "LOL"
• cig — Short for cigarette or cigar
• CL — (NukeZone) Clan Leader.
• cluebie — A clueless newbie (but sometimes apparently confusingly used to mean "a newbie with a clue, but not close to a guru")
• CMIIW — "Correct me if I'm wrong"
• CoD — "Call of Duty"; World War II first person shooter PC Game*
• CoH — "City of Heroes"; comic-book themed massively multiplayer online PC game
• coo — "Cool"
• CPL — "Actually standing for CyberAthlete Professional League, the biggest LAN event, but has become an alternative to call some "leet" (good) for example, "OMG you're CPL"
• CS — "Counter-Strike"; Widely played First Person Shooter game; Computer Science.
• CSL — "Can't stop laughing"
• CT — (Counter-Strike) Counter Terrorist, (NukeZone) Clan Trustee.
• CTD — "Crash To Desktop" - Used to indicate that the speaker's game has crashed.
• CTF — "Capture the flag". A gaming mode where two teams have a flag each and the objective of capturing the other team's flag.
• ctm. — "Chuckle to myself"
• CTTOI — "Come To Think Of It"
• CU — "see you"; used as a goodbye, commonly together with "l8r" (later), as in "cul8r", often abbreviated to merely "cul". See also "cya".
• CUAD — "Curl Up and Die", see FOAD
• CUNT — See You Next Time (C & U are slang for see & you)
• CUWUL — "Catch up with you later"
• CWOT — "Complete waste of time"
• CYA — "See you"; used as a goodbye (see "cu"). Also, "check(ing) your ass", or "cover your ass", as in taking some precautionary measure just for safety's sake, or to avoid blame in a risky (but necessary) action (predates the Internet).
• cyberbug — someone who spends too much time on the Internet
• CYFF — "Change your font fucker!"; used when someone has an annoying and hard to read font.
• CVQ — "chuckling very quietly"; see CiS
• C&C, CnC — "Command & Conquer"; A popular series of Strategy games, originally by Westwood Studios
• C&V — "Chapter & verse"; used in newsgroups.
• C|N>K — "coffee through nose into keyboard"; a Unix-ism involving the Unix command line pipe (|) and redirect (>) characters.

D

• D2 — "Diablo_II"
• DB4L — "Drinking buddy for life"
• DC'd, D/C — "Disconnected"
• DD — "Don't die". Usually used in online real-time strategy games.
• Dede — "See Dedish - sometimes used in conjunction - dede dedish."
• Dedish — "Rarely used term - similar in meaning to W00t. Sometimes used in conjunction with dede - dede dedish."
• dernoe — "(I) don't know"
• DFC — "Don't fucking care"
• DGT — "Don't go there"
• DH — "Dear husband". Used by housewives posting on Internet forums.
• DH — "Dickhead"
• DIAF — "Die in a Fire"
• DING — To level up
• DLLM "Diu Lei Lo Mo" or "Diu Lay Lo Mo", meaning "fuck your mother" in Cantonese
• DILLIFC — "Do I look like I fucking care?"
• DILLIGAF — "Do I look like I give a fuck?"
• DIRFM — "Does it really fucking matter?"
• DIY — "Do it yourself" (Not Internet-specific)
• DKDC — "Don't know, don't care", usually used when a person is apathetic about something.
• DKLM — "Diu Kau Lo Mo (Cantonese: 屌鳩老母, means fuck mother)"
• DKLMCFH — "Diu Kau Lo Mo Chau Fa Hai (Cantonese: 屌鳩老母臭化閪, means fuck mother smelly vagina)"
• DL, D/L — "Download"; receiving data from a remote host. Usually functions as a noun or verb. Can sometimes mean "down-low", as taken from real-life usage.
• DLF — "Dropping like flies"; said when many participants have left a chat room suddenly
• DM — "Deathmatch". A gaming mode with the goal of fragging as many other players as possible during a given time.
• DMY — "Don't mess yourself"; from an episode of The Simpsons.
• DnD — "Do not Disturb" or "Dungeons_&_Dragons"
• DON — "Denial-of-Normal"; Originally used on Slashdot
• DOTC — Dancing on the ceiling.
• DoS — "Denial-of-Service"; a malicious attack on a computer system.
• DT — "Double Team"; used in GunBound, a game developed by Softnyx.
• DTA — "Don't Trust Anyone" (From M.R.Dilligaf in KOKOMO)
• dun — "Don't"; commonly used by Singaporeans.
• dunno — "(I) don't know"
• DUT — "Don't you think(?)"
• DYK — "Did you know(?)"
• DW, D/W — "Dmuh"

E

• E — Enlightenment, a popular X11 window manager
• EBBOM — "Engage brain before opening mouth"
• EG — "Evil grin", normally written *EG* or <EG> to separate it from the surrounding text.
• ehlp — Deliberate misspelling of "help" (making fun of newbies yelling for help in a MMORPG)
• EIL — "Explode into laughter"
• El-OH-EL; Another way to write down "lol" which stands for "laughing out loud" or "laugh out loud". Used humorously to imply that people use "lol" too much
• EO;Endless-Online, a popular RPG game
• EOF — "end of file" — used to imply the end of something
• EOM — "End of message"
• EQ — "Everquest", a popular MMORPG
• EQ2 — "Everquest2", a popular MMORPG
• ESABATM — "Eat Shit and Bark at the Moon", a riposte to someone allegedly behaving like an 'SOB'
• ESAD — "Eat shit and die"
• e-Slang — Term used to include all abbreviations and coined terms used in e-mail, instant messaging, chatrooms, and online gaming (such as MUDS, MUCKS, etc.) (Stacy Crosby, 2004)
• EULA — End-User License Agreement (a popular topic on many MMORPGs)
• ETLA — "Extended three letter acronym", see TLA.
• EZ; Easy. (pre-dates the Internet)

F

• FAP — Onomatopoeia for the sound produced by male masturbation. Also used as a verb. See Sexy Losers. Also: Fiction Alley Park.
• Fanboy — a guy with an obsession for a operating system or for a game console.
• FAQ — Frequently Asked Question(s), or a list of frequently-asked questions (with answers). Seldom appears written in small letters.
• FCS — For Christ's sake.
• fcbl; fake chinaman belly-laugh
• FE — "Fúmate esta", a Spanish expression for "suck my dick"
• FE — "Fatal error"
• FF — Final Fantasy; "Friendly Fire" (especially in First Person Shooters).
• FFA — Free For All (especially in First Person Shooters)
• FFO — "Far Fucking Out", old hippie term
• FFlO — "Far Flaming Out", old hippie term
• FFS — "for fuck's sake!" (sometimes replaced with FS, "fuck's sake")
• FGI — "Fucking Google it"; used in response to a common question
• FK — "Short for Fuck"
• FKN — "Short for Fucken" as in FKN Hell (Fucken Hell)
• flames — see "flamer".
• flamer — one engaged in flaming. Also ominously close to the term lamer.
• FLOABT — "for lack of a better term"
• FO, FOAD — "Fuck off/Fuck off and die"
• FOAF — "Friend of a friend"; the dubious attribution given to urban legends
• FOIG — "Find out in game"
• FOOCL — "Falls out of chair laughing".
• fooding — the act of acquiring food; often used in conjunction with AFK (EG: "AFK fooding")
• FOTF — "Fall On The Floor"
• FOTM — "Flavour of the Month"
• FP — "First post"; originally used on Slashdot
• FPS; "First Person Shooter", games such as Quake and Unreal Tournament exemplify First Person Shooters; (Computing) Frames per second
• frag — To kill or tear to pieces. Its origin comes the Vietnam War or earlier, from "fragmentation grenade". It had a particular application to "fragging" 2nd lieutenants or hated officers, especially in the jungle.
• FSOD — "Frozen Screen of Death"; a Phantasy Star Online error.
• FTA — "From the article"
• FTF or F2F — "Face to face"; referring to a meeting in the real world, not online. In role-playing terms, it is the offline predecessor to MMORPGs and MUDs.
• FTLOG — "For the love of God!"
• FTP — "File transfer protocol"; or "First to post"
• FTTB — "For the time being"
• FTW — "For the win"; Indicates the end of the game, it is often used to reference the object responsible for victory. Also sometimes shown as 4tw.
• FU — "Fuck you" (predates Internet)
• FUBAR — "Fucked up beyond all repair" or "fucked up beyond all recognition" (predates Internet). (Possibly led to the metasyntactic variables foo and bar)
• FUBAH — "Fucked up beyond all hope"
• fucktard — "Fucking Retard"
• FUD — "Fear, uncertainty and doubt"; purposeful spread of misinformation.
• FUDIE — "Fuck you and die"
• FWIW — "For what it's worth"
• FXP — "File exchange protocol"
• FYAD — "Fuck you and die" (from SomethingAwful.com)
• FYI — "For your information" (predates the Internet)
• FFS — "Fuck Fuck Shit"; "For Fucks Sake"

G

• G — "Grin", normally written *G* or <G> to separate it from the surrounding text
• G1 — "Good one".
• G2G, GTG — "Got to go", also "good to go"; popularized in MMORPGs and MUDs.
• G4Y, GFY — "Good for you", or "go fuck yourself"; the ambiguity of this acronym calls for care. G4Y can also mean "gay".
• GA — "Go Ahead"
• GAGF — "Go and get fucked"
• GAL — "Get a life"
• gamez — Illegally obtained games (see warez).
• GAWD — A variant spelling of the word "God", taken to the Internet.
• GBTW — "Get Back To Work"; commonly used in conjunction with other acronyms, as in "STFU GBTW".
• GCAD — "Get cancer and die"
• <g,d&r> — "Grins, ducks and runs"; used after a particularly bad joke, seemingly to try to avoid comments about it.
• GF — "Girlfriend", also means "get fucked"
• GFI — "Good fucking idea"
• GFY — "Go fuck yourself"
• GG — "Good going" or "good game"; used sincerely in competitive and cooperative online games, or used sarcastically when someone has done something foolish. Also "genuine girl", used on chat sites to indicate that the user is female, rather than simply pretending to be.
• GGG — "Go, go, go!" A command to tell players to attack.
• GGL — Google
• GGMF — "Great Godzilla Motherfuckers!", first quoted in Dealer McDope No. 1 (drawn by Dave Sheridan)
• GGPO — "Good Game, Peace Out" originating from underground Street Fighter gaming communities. Namely, http://www.shoryuken.com. Possibly also rooted in Ebonics. Used to convey either good games, or losing games. (e.g. drinking + driving = ggpo). Often shortened to just "peaced out" (e.g. He was driving drunk, hit a wall, and got peaced out.)
• GH — "Good half", used in online round-based games such as Counter-Strike.
• Ghey — "Gay"
• GIS — Google Image Search; searching for images through the Google search engine
• GIYF — "Google is your friend", implying "search the web rather than asking questions".
• GJ — "Good job" (often used sarcastically)
• GL — "Good luck"
• Gl hf — "Good luck, have Fun." Usually used in online gaming.
• GMTA — "Great minds think alike"
• gnite, GN8 — "Good night"
• "gno" — Gonna (Going to)
• Godo — an unintentional misspelling of the word "good" in an Internet videogame, which then turned into an inside joke within the JJ2 (Jazz Jackrabbit 2) community and spread from there.
• Gosu — Korean for Exceptional or Superior
• GR8 — "Great", sometimes spelled gre8t even though it doesn't make the word any shorter.
• Grats — Abbreviation of "congratulations". Used in MMORPGs when a played reaches a new rank or level
• GTFO — "Get the fuck out"
• GTG — "Got to go"
• GTH — "Go to hell"
• GTP — "Got to Pee"
• guru — An expert in some technical topic, such as C programming or Unix system administration
• GW — "Good work", often used sarcastically.
• GYTOYA — "Get your thumb outta your ass." Sometimes used during chat sessions when one of the chatters become unresponsive for some time.

H

• H8 — "Hate", or "H1" to "H9" to indicate how much a person hates something.
• HAI — A purposeful misspelling of "hi"; Japanese for "yes"
• HAMMRD* — "Hammered, also meaning pwn/pwned/owned. See pwn"
• HAND — "Have a nice day"
• Hawt — variation of "hot", used to suggest that someone seems attractive
• HAX, H4X; "Hacks, term most commonly used in multiplayer games by new players (see n00bs) to accuse someone of hacking, more commonly than not because of their own lack of skill. (see pwned)"
• HAXOR, H4X0R; "Hacker"
• HB — "Hurry back"
• HB — "Herremange Byte" Danish expression for a large amount of data. Also abbreviated to "H", it may appear in various other expressions, like "HP — Herremange Pornofilm" (large amount of pornographic movies), etc.
• HBD — "Happy birthday"
• HC — "Holy Crap"
• HF — "Have fun"
• HGC — "Hum Ga Chan", cursing one's family to die in Cantonese
• hijack — To start an off-topic discussion; "hijack a thread" on a message board.
• hmwk, hwk, hw — "Homework"
• HNG — "Horny net geek"
• H/O — "Hold on"
• HoBO — Person who plays games, especially HoB (www.heatofbattle.net)
• HPB — "High ping bastard" or "High ping bait", reference to those with high latency (ping) usually in online games. The opposite of LPB
• HPL — "High ping llama", an alternate form of HPB.
• HSS — "Horse shit and splinters"
• HTH — "Hope this (or that) helps"
• HTF — "How the fuck"; derivative of WTF.
• HTF — hitting the fridge
• hysterical raisins — Phonetic-based variation of the term "historical reasons". Used to dismisses given reasons as absurd, obsolete and/or detrimental to progress
• HWG Here We Go
• HWGA Here we go again
• HWP — "Hug, Wave, Poof"; A way of saying "goodbye"

I

• IANAL — "I am not a lawyer"; usually used before a non-lawyer gives legal advice, as a (sometimes humorous) disclaimer.
• IANARS — "I am not a rocket scientist"
• IBDTSFY - "I've been doin this (stuff) for years" (sometimes with an "M" ("man") appended)
• IC — "I see", also "in character" in MMORPG or MUD settings.
• ICURNS2 — "I see, you're an ass, too".
• ICYDK / ICYDN / ICUDK — "In case you didn't know"
• IDK — "I don't know"
• ID10T — "Idiot"; generally pronounced eye-dee-ten-tee, its meaning is not obvious until viewed in written form. Example: "We've got an ID10T error!"
• idjit, ijit — "Idiot"
• IDNHSWTW "I did not have sex with that woman", a reference to president Clinton. Quite obscure
• IHAC — "I have a customer"
• IIRC — "If I recall correctly", or "if I remember correctly"
• IIUC — "If I understand correctly"
• IKON — "ikonBoard, also spelled as IKN"
• I'D HIT IT — "I'd have sex with that person", originated on Fark
• I like pie — Used to express apathy or confusion towards the present subject matter, invented by YINever of the GameFAQs message boards
• ILOTIBINLIRL — "I'm laughing on the Internet, but I'm not laughing in real life"
• I'LL RATE IT — A term used when judging something to have a high degree of excellence or brilliance ; term used to complement a joke-teller on a job well done.
• ILU; i love u' - saying you love a person
• IM — "Instant message", can be used as a noun ("Send an IM") or a verb ("I'll IM him"). Past tense is "IM'd" or "IMed".
• IMESHO — "In my ever so humble opinion", as opposed to IMHO (In my humble opinion)
• IMO — "In my opinion"
• IMAO — "In my arrogant opinion"
• IMHO — "In my humble opinion", or "in my honest opinion"
• IMHPO — "In my humble public opinion", used by public accounts (accounts owned by more than one persons).
• IMHE — "In my humble experience"
• IMNSHO — "In my not so humble opinion", as opposed to IMHO (In my humble opinion)
• INMP — "It's not my problem"
• Internetica — General term describing about anything related to the Internet. First used on Premier BBS in 1992
• INTPFPOTM — "I nominate this post for post of the month"; incredibly obscure.
• IOH — "I'm outta here"
• IOKIYAR — "It's OK If You're A Republican", usually used on Democratic blogs referring to hypocritical things Republicans allegedly do
• IOW — "In other words"
• IPB — Invision Power Board
• IRC — Internet Relay Chat
• IRL — "In real life"; often used in online games to refer to life outside of the game, see RL. Made famous by the movie "The Net" starring Sandra Bullock
• IRT — "In reply to"
• ISTR — "I seem to remember/recall"
• ITT — "In this thread"; first used on forum.canucks.com in White Noise.
• ITYM — "I Think You Mean"; usually prefacing a humorous "correction"
• IYDMMA — "If you don't mind me asking"
• IYKWIM — "If you know what I mean"

J

• JAHOYFT — "Just ask him/her out you fucking tool", used to motivate persons suffering from unnecessary trepidation
• Jaja — This is the correct spelling of "Haha" in several languages, however, this is occasionally used online as slang for laughing.
• JAK — "Jazak Allah Khair", Arabic expression for thank you
• JC, J/C — "Just curious"
• JJ — "Just joking"
• JJ — Short form of male sexual organ in recent spoken Cantonese in Hong Kong (Jer Jer 雀雀; the little bird), believed to have originated on the famous HK Golden Forum. JJ refers to male masturbation too.
• JJable — Derived from the slang "JJ" (see above), JJable in Cantonese slang means "sexy" or "hot"
• JK, J/K — "Just kidding"
• JOOC — "Just out of curiosity"
• j00, j00s, j00r — Leet speak for "you" or "your"
• JW, J/W — "Just wondering"

K

• 1k — "One Thousand"- 2k=2000 10k=10000 etc
• K — "OK/Okay"
• keekles — Usually used while deliberately acting like a newbie. Otherwise used as an alphabetical substitute for the ^__^ emoticon.
• kewl, kool — Alternate forms of "cool".
• KISS — "Keep it simple, stupid" (predates the Internet)
• KITFO — "Knock it the fuck off"
• KK — "Ok Kool"
• KNF — "Kernel normal form"; kernel source file style guide (OpenBSD's style(9) man page)
• KNN — "Fuck your mother" (Mandarin Chinese)
• KO — A common misspelling of ok.
• KOTC — "Kiss on the cheek"
• [KOL|KOTL] — "Kiss on lips" or "Kingdom of Loathing", a free online RPG.
• KOS — "Kill on Sight"; used to designate enemies in online games whom -- based on their prior actions -- one should kill
• KREE! — "Attention!" (from Jaffa language in Stargate)
• KS — "Kill steal"; used in online games with an experience (EXP) system, when one player defeats an enemy already weakened by another player.
• KTHXBYE — "Okay, thanks, goodbye" — usually used to end a conversation abruptly and rudely
• ku — alternate form of "cool"

L

• L8, L8R — "Late", "later"; as in "see you later", often used together with CU, as in CUL8R.
• LAFFO — Signifying laughter
• LAL — "Laugh a little", weaker form of LOL used only by a select few
• Llama — Lame player (see also HPL); Lower League Manager (used on SiGames Message boards)
• LATN — "Laugh at the newbs"
• LBR — "Little boy's room"
• LD — "Link dead"; used in online games when a disconnected user's persona or character remains in the game.
• LEO — "Law enforcement officer"
• Leef — "Leave", go now !
• LEET, L33T, 1337, 31337 — "Elite", used ironically; also another kind of slang where numbers and symbols replace similar-looking characters.
• Lewt — "Loot" Often used as "Lewt fast 'n' Bewt ass".
• LIGAFF — "Like I give a flying fuck"
• LIGAS — "Like I give a shit"
• Linkage — Link
• LION — "Like it or not..."
• LIUY — "Look it up yourself"
• LKY — "Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor of Singapore"
• LMAO — "Laughing my ass off"
• LMAOnade — A homophonous extension of LMAO that humorously refers to "lemonade"
• Chairman LMAO — similar to above, referring to the first Communist ruler of China.
• LMAYONNAISE — The precurser to LMAOnade referring to mayonnaise. Inspired by the game ROFL Attack.
• LMFAO — "Laughing my fucking ass off"
• LMTFA — "Leave me the fuck alone"
• LOFL — "A recursive play on ROFL; LOFL on floor LOFLing"
• LOL — "Laughing out loud", or "lots of laughs"; as a reply to something amusing. Also "lots of love" (not as common). Alternatively allegedly derived from the Dutch word lol ("fun")
• lolcity — Something so funny the entire city laughs out loud.
• lollercaust — An extreme event of hilarity.
• lollerskates — Pun on the word "rollerskates"; similar usage to LOL.
• Lolly Roffles — Laughing Out Loud and rolling on the floor laughing (used when something seems particularly funny)
• L@@K — "Look", from eBay. Used by sellers who have nothing interesting to say about their item, but who try to attract attention anyway
• Loxxen — An altered form of LOL, with virtually the same meaning, but slightly enhanced.
• LPB — "Low ping bastard", reference to those with low latency (ping) usually in online games. The opposite of HPB.
• LPL — "Like Penny Lane", reference to a song from The Beatles, which includes the line "Penny Lane is in my ears, and in my eyes". It implies something very strange or weird.
• LSFW — "Less Suitable for Work"
• LTID — "Laugh 'til I die"
• LTNS — "Long time no see"
• lurker — One who reads an email list or a message board but does not participate in the discussion.
• luser — Punny cross between loser and user, can mean either of the two. Usually denotes users of Microsoft Windows.
• LYL — "Love ya lots"
• LYLAS/LYLAB — Love you like a Sister/ Love ya like a Brother
• LYK, LYKE — "Like"
• LYSM — love you so much

M

• M473z — "Mates" pronounced may-tez, a term referring to a good friend, closer than a m8
• M8 — "Mate"; as in "buddy" or "pal"
• MFC — "Merge from current"
• Micro$oft, M$ — Satirical alternative spellings of "Microsoft", used to poke fun at that company's alleged commercial monopolizing
• MLOD — "Mega LOL of doom"
• MML — "Make mine Linux", comeback to 'élitist' Windows users
• MMORPG — "Massively multiplayer online role playing game", a game played online with (potentially) thousands of other people from (potentially) across the world
• Mod — "Moderator" (usually referring to a forum) or "modification"
• Mookies Law — on the SiGames message board means to post a pic of the subject under discussion
• MOTD — "Message of the day"
• MSAR — "My Socks are Rocked" see RMS
• MT — "Miss tell" ("I intended to send the previous message to another user or via a different channel")
• MUD — "Multi User Dungeon" (or Dimension / Domain), a type of online computer game (see MUD)
• MUSH — "Multi User Shared Habitat", a text-based online social environment (see MUSH)
• MYOB — "Mind your own business" - Also the brand name of accounting software MYOB (Australia). See also MYOB Support Forum

N

• N1 — "Nice one"
• N/A — "Not applicable" or "not available"
• NAP — "Necessary action please"
• NB — Short for "nabei", commonly used in mmorpgs as a swear word. Closest approximation of meaning — see CB.
• NBD — "No big deal"
• NFBSK — "Not for British school kids", originally from message boards at snopes.com, used sometimes in place of NSFW.
• NFI — "No fucking idea"
• NFS ; "Not for sale". Commonly used in MMORPGs when someone wants to buy another player's equipment
• newb — Short for "newbie"; meaning someone who is new, usually at a game
• NFAHRU? — "Not from around here R U?"
• NG — "Newsgroup"
• NG — "No good"
• NG — "Also used to refer to the flash site NewGrounds
• Ngaaaah — A cry of frustration or triumph, which one can speak out loud by using the throat and nasal passage to produce a loud and at times annoying sound. Used comonly in some school environments to annoy a teacher as a class unit. This cry can also gain the attention of ones peers
• Nh — "Nice hand"; used in online card games.
• NI — "No idea"
• NIB — "New In Box", from eBay auctions.
• N1994, N199312 — Leet speak for "nigga/nigger"
• NIFOC — Naked in front of Computer
• NM or N/M or nm — "Never mind" or "not/nothing much". Also "no message", used on message boards to indicate that all the text is in the post's title, and that it need not be opened itself.
• NM U: "Nothing much, you?" (generally said after sup)
• NMFYS — Unknown acronym from comic Badly Drawn Kitties, a webcomic. User-created "solutions" include "Not Mentioned For Your Sanity" and "Not My First Yellow Submarine," see the BDK Comic.
• NMNHNLM — Acronym for "no money no honey nobody loves me" originating from HWZ forums
• NN — "Night night" like "good night" Also: "Nerf Noodle" (someone who doesn't belong on a computer), or "Nazi Newbie" (a know-it-all newbie who corrects everyone), or "non-nude" (in the context of photos)
• noob — Shorthand/leet spelling of "newbie". Also spelled "n00b", with two zeroes rather than two Os (see leet)"nub" or "newb". In some Internet circles, the term "noob" or "n00b" has a negative connotation, generally not associated with "newb" or "newbie", where being a n00b carries a connotation of ignorance and laziness. N00bs may lack the energy or the gumption to RTFM or otherwise attempt to find out about a subject themselves — even given the ready availability of the information — and instead choose to bother others. A newbie, on the other hand, simply comes fresh to a subject, with no particularly negative connotations. Internet Games such as "Call of Duty", "Counter-Strike", the Battlefield Series, and "Medal of Honor" commonly use the term "n00b".
• n0083127z — "Nooberts" a mutation of n00b, often used to describe someone who not only demonstrates stupidity, but is also has less esteem or less power than the speaker
• NORE; "No Rematch" (Usually said by the victor)
• Norp — from pr0n. Used to discreetly speak of pornography without alerting the attention of others (less obvious in meaning than pr0n)
• NORWICH; "Knickers off ready when I come home" (UK, pre-Internet)
• NOYB — "None of your business"
• NP — "No problem"; Neopoints, currency on the free web game Neopets
• NPA — "Not paying attention"
• NR — "No reserve"
• NR4U — "Not right for you"
• NS — "Nice shot"; used sincerely in competitive and cooperative online games such as GunBound, or Medal of Honor. Also, "No Shit"; sometimes used as "NSS" for "No Shit, Sherlock"
• NSFW — "Not safe for work"; indicates that one should avoid using a link from a workplace due to the presence of pornography or of other unsuitable content. Used at Fark and on some message boards. See also SFW.
• nsh — "No" and "shhhh"; indicates good-natured denial.
• NPNT — "No picture, no talk", originlly from Hardwarezone — EDMW
• NT — "No text"; used on Internet forums or Usenet to indicate that a post has no content. Also, "nice try"; used by gamers.
• NTH — "Not totally here"
• NVM — "Never mind"
• NWS — "Not work safe"; see NSFW.
• Nyo — A usually meaningless word/particle attached to the end of sentences, similar to the word "hiyo" used by Johnny Carson; from the anime Di Gi Charat

O

• O — "Oh"
• OAR — On a roll — referring to someone's luck during Internet games. Winning several games in a row (3 or more) would constitute an OAR.
• OBTW — "Oh, by the way"
• OS — "Oh, shit!"
• OGM — "Oh God My!!" Sometimes intentional misspelling of OMG.
• oh noes!!!!111 — An exaggerated expression of despair, often used for humorous effect.
• OIC — "Oh, I see"
• OMD — Exclamation; varient of OMG. A "bastardization" of OMG, as well as standing for "Oh my dog"
• OMG — Exclamation, "Oh my God/goodness!"
• OMFG — Exclamation, "Oh my fucking God!"
• OMGWTFBBQ — "Oh my God, what the fuck, bar-be-que."; used in a humorous manner in reference to those who abuse Internet slang.
• OMGWTFNIPPLES — "Oh my God, what the fuck, nipples", used in a humorous manner in reference to those who string together too much Internet slang in one word
• OMFL — Exclamation, "oh my fucking lag!"
• OMW — "On my way"
• On9 — "moron", originated from colloquial Cantonese, written as 戇鳩 in Chinese characters. 戇 has a pronunciation similar to "On" in Cantonese, whereas the number "9" when spoken in Cantonese sounds close to the word 鳩.
• OOC — "Out-of-character"; usually in MMORPG or MUD settings when a player isn't acting out his/her part. It was also used in fanfiction to indicate likewise. Also, "out of curiosity".
• OOF — "Out of oFfice"; used primarily at Microsoft. Sometimes said to be from "Out Of Facility".
• OOO — "Out of the office"; Used similarly to MIA. "Ken is OOO today." Also, OpenOffice.org.
• OOM — "out of mana" (used in games with a "mana" or "energy" bar)
• OP — Original poster
• Op — Operator, a moderator or moderators of a chat room
• orz — used to express frustration. The characters taken together as a single glyph depict a person slamming his head into the ground while on hands and knees.
• OSIB — "Open skull, insert brain"
• OT — "Off-topic"
• OTC — "Over the counter" - items bought from stores without a permit or without requiring a permit. (Pre-dates the Internet)
• OTP — "One true pairing", meaning two characters believed to be perfect together, usually not canon. Used in fanfiction
• OTOH — "On the other hand"
• OTTOMH — "Off the top of my head"
• OTW — "On the way"
• OUACOWA — "Open Up A Can Of Whoop-Ass", meaning an amazing thing. Coined from the roleplay game Unknown Armies.
• OU812? — "Oh you ate one too?", reference Van Halen for "You're stoned too?" druggie slang.
• OXO (oxa, oxå) — Norwegian/Danish (Swedish) shortening of the word "også" ("också"), which translates to "too" or "also"
• own, owned, OWN3D, ownt — (see also pwn) To defeat someone (used commonly when playing Counter-Strike) or to humiliate someone tactically in a debate; to exhibit extreme coolness (for example: "BMWs totally own").
• ownzer — One who "owns" (see own)
• OYATM — "One Year Ago This Month" used in Usenet binary groups when posting content that has just recently become old enough to post.
• OQC — "Only Quality Crap"

P

• P911 — "Parents are here, don't type sumthin' stupid!"
• P2P — "Peer-to(2)-Peer". Also "pay-to-play" for games with subscription fees like Everquest, RuneScape, or Dark Age of Camelot.
• PAW — "Parents are watching" (Also see "POS")
• PCBD — "Page cannot be displayed"; Internet Explorer error when attempting to visit an invalid link or URL, or when a Web server times out.
• PCC — Short for par-chiew-cheng. In Min Nan Chinese, short for the act of male masturbation.
• PEBKAC — "Problem exists between keyboard and chair", referring to in human error. See PICNIC and ID10T.
• PFO — "Please fuck off"
• PICNIC — "Problem in chair, not in computer", referring to in human error. See PEBKAC and ID10T.
• Piconjo — A shared account on www.newgrounds.com. Large numbers of people, under the guise of Piconjo accounts, submit explicit animations of NG animators, in an attempt to "pwn" them. Piconjo speaks in fluent 1337 and claims to have "pen0r power".
• Pic(s), pix — Used in reference to a picture. Usually posted when someone wants another person to post a picture. This could be used in many different situations, but is most prominent when someone is talking about a woman or girl.
• PIIDB — "Put it in da butt" (referring to anal sex)
• ping — "Are you there?", derived from the program of the same name.
• PITA — "Pain in the ass"
• PLS, PLZ, PLX — "Please" — predates Internet
• PK — "Player killer", or "Pok Gai" (cursing a person to die on the street in Cantonese)
• PM — "Private message"
• PMG — Can sometimes be seen instead of "omg", which means "oh my God"
• PMIBD — "Pardon me I'm brain dead!"
• PMSL — "Pissing myself laughing", synonymous with "LMAO", above and "ROFL", below.
• PO, PO'd — "Piss off", or "pissed off"
• POA — Plan of Action;
• POTAS; Person Of The Appropriate Sex, that is, a person of the sex that one finds attractive. A more politically correct term than "person of the opposite sex"
• POS — "Parents over shoulder"; a warning, by kids, that parents may be watching. Also, "piece of shit". (Also see "PAW")
• POV — "Point of view"
• ppl, ppls — "People".
• ppor; "Post proof or recant."
• pro, pr0 — "Professional"; meaning someone is really good, usually at a game.
• pRO; "Philippine Ragnarok Online" MMORPG
• pron, pr0n — "Porn" (short for pornography); intentional misspelling used to avoid automated filters on certain words.
• protal, pr0tal — a misspelling of "portal", an automated system used on websites such as Newgrounds to manage submitted content.
• prv — "Private" similar to PM; usually used for IRC private messaging
• pshlut; The P and the H are silent, thus equaling slang for "slut"
• PTBB; "Pass the barf bag," coined in the Childfree.net discussion list in the '90s.
• PvE — Player versus environment
• PvP — Player versus player
• PvM — "Player versus Monster"
• pwn, pwned (also p0wn or pwnt) — An accidental or intentional mistyping of "own". Sometimes used to speak of illegal activities. See "own" above.
• P07; Another way to type "pot" as in "weed" or "grass". other ways to say this include: w33d, po7 q07 qot and \/\/33d. More abbreviations exist: see leetspeak

Q

• QFE — "quoted for emphasis", see QFT
• QFT — "quoted for truth", means something along the lines of "I second that statement!". Sometimes stated more emphatically as QFMFT.
• ql, qool, qoolz — "Cool" (in the American sense)
• qwn, qwnt, qwned — Deliberate typo of "pwn" (which see), which is a deliberate typo of "own"
• QQ — "Crying eyes" (of perhaps Hong Kong Origin) meaning "oh poor baby" (false pity)

R

• R — "Are"
• r0x0rz (also rox0rs and other forms) — Leet speak for "rocks".
• R8 — "Right", "rate"
• RBP — "Read Before Posting"
• RCT — RollerCoaster Tycoon
• RD — Red Dwarf
• RE — rematch; often used in online games
• re/rehi — "Hello again", used on IRC, especially popular with Europeans. Mentioned in the Jargon File.
• refl — Deliberate mistype of "ROFL"
• reflectoporn — from eBay auctions created by exhibitionists who sell various metal/glass dishes, bowls, spoons, with themselves reflected nude on the surface of the item.
• rents - short for "parents"
• rgr — "Roger" aka "affirmative" or "10-4", radio talk; "Roger that", meaning "message acknowledged".
• rifk — Deliberate mistype of "ROFL"
• RIFY — Read if You Like; often used such that 'if you like __ you will probably like this'
• RL — "Real life"; often used in online games to refer to life outside of the game (which some would see as fictional!), see IRL.
• rly — "really"; usually used as "o rly" to signify one's stupidity at not knowing the topic at hand.
• RMS — "Rocks my Socks", expresses amusement or being impressed by something. For example, "Religion RMS." Often used to express indifference or unenthusiasm
• ROFL, ROTFL, ROFLMAO — "Rolling on the floor laughing (my ass off)"; as a reply to something extremely amusing.
• ROFLMAOPIMP; "Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off peeing in my pants"
• ROFLCOPTER — The superlative of ROFL
• roffle — Alternate version of "ROFL", based on the latter's supposed verbalisation.
• roffle out loud — A form of "ROFL" or "LOL", intended to mock those who use many acronyms in speech.
• roj — "Roger" aka "affirmative"
• ROR — "Raughing out roud", an Engrish variant of LOL.
• ROLF — "Rolling on the laughing floor", a misspelling of "ROFL".
• RS — RuneScape, one of the many MMORPGs.
• RSN — "Real soon now", sense of sarcasm.
• ROTFFLMFAO — "Rolling on the fucking floor laughing my fucking ass off." A more vulgar version of ROTFLMAO.
• ROTFLBTC — "Rolling on the floor laughing, biting the carpet"
• ROTFLMHO — "Rolling on the floor laughing my head off"; alternative to ROTFLMAO. Some people may leave out the "T" so it will be ROFLMHO
• ROTFLMAOSTC — "Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off scaring the cats"; another alternative to ROTFLMAO
• ROFLMOO — "Rolling on the Floor Laughing my Organs Out"
• ROFLKMD — "Rolling On the Floor Laughing Kazaa Media Desktop" or "Rolling on the floor laughing kicking my dog"; another alternative to ROFL
• RTFA — "Read the fucking article"; applies mostly to Slashdot threads, in response to users who make comments on a story without having read it first.
• RTFRFC — "Read the fucking RFC", similar to RTFM, telling someone to read an RFC to find his or her answer.
• RTFM — "Read the fucking/friendly/fine manual", the frequent reply to a request for basic help from newbies who have not attempted to find the answer for themselves.
• RTFMFM — "Read the fucking manual fucking moron"; derived from RTFM with slightly more emphasis on the newbie's lack of intelligence.
• RTFP — "Read the fucking post"; derived from RTFA and also used on Slashdot.
• RTFS — "Read the fucking/fine source", frequently used when documentation for a software program is lacking or absent.
• RTL — "Report the loss"; usually used in online gaming; used sarcastically when one loses or gets fragged
• RtR — "Raise the Roof"; usually followed by an exclamation mark
• RTSD — "Rush That Shit Down" originating from underground Street Fighter gaming communities. Namely, http://www.shoryuken.com. Possibly also rooted in Ebonics. Used to convey taking advantage of a good thing. (e.g. Filet-O-Fish only $0.99 on Fridays? RTSD!). Originally used to describe a play style where one overwhelms the opponent with many quick and up close attacks.
• RU — "Are you"
• RUT — "Are you there?"

S

• S — "Smile", usually written *S* or <S> to separate it from the surrounding text. See "G".
• SB — "Strong Bad", a cartoon character on Homestar Runner
• S2R — "Send-to-receive"; indicates that one expects to receive a file (usually an image) before he or she sends his or hers.
• SFLA — "Stupid Four Letter Acronym"
• sif — "As if"
• sifn't — "As if not", used in reply to "sif".
• SCNR — "Sorry, could not resist"
• SH — "Shit happens"
• SLAGIATT — "Seemed like a good idea at the time" Helpful for comments when refactoring embarrassing software design decisions. Pre-Internet.
• SMD — "Suck my dick"
• SMDVQ — "Suck my dick very quick"
• Smeg — Derived from the word smegma, meaning the same as "fuck" or "bugger" (popularized by Red Dwarf, a British TV sitcom).
• SMF — "Simple Machines Forums"
• SO — "Significant other"; a termed encapsulating a girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse.
• SOB — Son of a bitch
• Soz — "Sorry", apparently only used in the UK.
• SFW — "Safe for work"; material (pictures, webpages) that is safe for the office. Used at Fark. See also NSFW. Alternate meaning (which may not be appropriate in the office): "So fucking what?"
• SOW — Abbreviation of Spirit of the Wolf, a commonly asked-for spell in EverQuest, which makes a player run faster.
• sroucks — Means even when something rocks, it sucks (or something in between), or vice versa. Often used in a sarcastic way, as to let others remain in doubt if it's praising or just the opposite.
• sry — "Sorry"
• srsly — "Seriously", usually used as an interjection; to signal a sarcastic response to an inane remark.
• SSDD — "Same shit, different day."
• SSIA — "Subject says it all"; used in newsgroup postings and the like.
• SSTS — "Snickering softly to self"
• STFD — "Sit the fuck down", often used after STFU and often targets someone expressing an unpopular opinion
• STFM — "Search the fucking manual"
• STFNG — "Search the fucking newsgroup" — variant on STFW
• STFU — "Shut the fuck up"
• STFW — "Search the fucking Web"
• stooge — Referring to an idiot, which can be spelled st00g3. A variant exists as "stoogewagger", which means more of a n00b and a "stooge".
• STW / STK — "Share The Wealth" or "Share The Knowledge". Most commonly used on Warez sites, it is a request that another user share a serial number or cracked software download. On Hacker forums, often refers to sharing information about a new exploit.
• SUAGOOML — "Shut up and get out of my life"
• sugarpic — A digital erotic, nude or suggestive image of one's self, usually sent online to a lover or to a friend
• sup? — "What is up?"
• sux, sux0rs, suxxor — Leet speak for "sucks", "suckers"
• SWAK — "Sealed with a kiss"
• SWALK — "Sealed with a loving kiss" (pre-Internet)
• SWIM; "someone who isn`t me"
• SWMBO — "She who must be obeyed"

T

• T — (Counter-Strike) Terrorist
• T3h — See teh.
• TA — "Thanks again"; also English and Australian slang for thanks, pronounced taa, predating the Internet.
• TBH — "To be honest"; also used within organizational charts to mean "To be hired", equivalent to TBD (to be determined) or to TBA (to be announced)
• TC — "Take care!"
• thanx, thx, thxs, thz — "Thanks"; this can form combinations such as "kthx" (OK, thanks), "plzkthx" (Please, OK, thanks), and "kthxbye" (OK, thanks, goodbye).
• teh — A usually deliberate typo of "the" — its popularity stemmed from the often-misspelled original word due to its natural frequency in English sentences. When deliberate, it sometimes serves to emphasise the following adjective, for example, "You are teh fat". It can also function to dismiss a subject, as in: "Teh, I don't care".
• TFA — "The fucking article"; a shorter form of "RTFA", mostly used on Slashdot
• T,FTFY — "There, fixed that for you", used when displaying an edited version of another's post, to correct an error or make a humorous word (or phrase) substitution
• tho — "though"
• TIA — "Thanks in advance"
• TITFO — "Turn It The Fuck Off" — common in Rainbow Six series games
• TK — Team kill (or killing, killer, depending on context)
• TLA — "Three letter acronym". TLA exemplifies a TLA.
• TL;DR — "Too long, didn't read"
• TMAI — "Tell me about it"
• TMR@IA — "The monkeys are at it again"; usually used to blame the staff of online gaming communities for any screw ups in-game.
• TMI — "Too much information"
• TMTOWTDI — "There's more than one way to do it"; usually used as one of the mottos of the Perl programming language.
• TNG — "That's Not Good"
• ToS — "Terms of service"; "Tales of Symphonia", a video game for the Gamecube and PS2 (the latter only in Japan), often referring to the official website's forums.
• ToSF — "Tales of Symphonia Forums", a recently growing center of popularity on the Internet. http://tales.namco.com/forums
• TP — "Town Portal", in Diablo and Diablo_II, a magical scroll for getting back into town; safety. Pronounced "teepee", and may occur as a verb ("Hey, TP me!"). Also, less frequently, "Take Point" in other games, thereby conserving a team member's health while the one "taking point" takes most of the damage.
• TPTB — "The powers that be"
• troll — A person who deliberately stirs up trouble.
• tr00 — "True" (used in the black metal community to refer to a supposed "true" hardcore, underground fan of the genre)
• TT — Emoticon signifying sadness or a crying face
• TTBOMK — "To the best of my knowledge"
• TTFN — "Ta ta for now" (bye, originated with Winnie The Pooh)
• TTIUWIOP — "This thread is useless without pics"
• TTT — Third Tier Toilet
• TTYL — Talk to you later
• TTYS — Talk to you soon"
• TY — "Thank you"
• TY4P — "Thank you for playing"

U

• u — "You"
• UA — User agreement
• UFIA — "Unsolicited finger in the anus"
• ul — Unlucky (gaming term)
• UL, U/L — "Upload"; sending data to a remote host.
• ur — "You're" or "your"
• URT — "Urban Terror"; A mod for Quake III
• URYYFM — "You are too wise (two Ys) for me"
• UST— "unresolved sexual tension"; usually referring to fanfiction
• USUX — "You suck"
• UT — "Unreal Tournament"; usually referring to the GOTY (Game of the Year) edition. Also used: UT2003 for "Unreal Tournament 2003", and UT2004 for "Unreal Tournament 2004".
• UTFG — "Use the fucking Google"; as an answer to a common question.
• Über — German for "over" but interpreted in English as "super" or "hyper"; often used in video games to describe someone's talent at the game. As in "I'm an Über player". Also seen written as "Uber", "Üb3r" and "Ül33R"
• Übern00b — (from German 'über', super-/hyper- and a corruption of newb) "Fat newbie"

V

• v — "We"
• VFM — "value for money"
• VoIP — "Voice over Internet protocol", or phone conversations over broadband connections.
• VWEG — "Very wicked evil grin". See "G"

W

• w — Japanese version of LOL (laugh out loud). Warai(笑い) in Japanese means "laughter".
• W/ — "With", predates Internet
• w00t, woot — Leet-speak exclamation of excitement or happiness or applauditory whistle; Used after gaining root control of a computer, can stand for "woohoo" or for "We owned the other team"
• w012d — "Word" (a generally positive interjection)
• W8 — "Wait"
• WAI — "What an idiot"; also, Japanese for "yay" as influenced by the anime culture
• WAD — "Without a doubt"
• WADR — With all due respect.
• waffles — Pun on "ROTFLMAO"; used similarly. In full: "Roffle my waffles"
• warez — Illegally obtained software.
• wat — "What"
• WB, wibs, wibbles, wibbers — "Welcome back"
• WBAGNFARB — "Would be a good name for a rock band. Inspired by columnist Dave Barry and used broadly by his fans.
• WCG — "World_Cyber_Games" an international cyber game festival runs by International Cyber Marketing.
• WC3 — "Warcraft III"
• WD — "Well done"
• WDUWTA — "What do you want to talk about?"
• w/e — "Whatever"
• WFM — "Works for me"
• WG, WEG — "Wicked (evil) grin"
• Whoamg — "Whoa my God", used as a sarcastic "Whoa".
• W/O — "Without", predates Internet
• WoW — "World of Warcraft"
• WOMBAT — "Waste of money, brains, and time"
• WoS — "Waste of Space"
• wot, wut — "What", predates Internet
• WP — "Well Played" (Usually used in Internet gaming)
• WRT — With respect to, with regard to
• WRU or wru — A very simplified "Where are you". Example: Wru from?
• WTF — "What the fuck?"; Also "who the fuck?", "why the fuck?", etc. given the context.
• Wruu2 — "What are you up to?"
• WTFPWND — See pwn
• WTG — "Way to go!", often sarcastic.
• WTFH — "What the fucking hell?"
• WTH — "What the heck?" or "what the hell?"
• WUD — "what you doing"
• WYSIAYG — "What you see is all you get". Like WYSIWYG, with a derogatory suggestion as to the incompleteness of the software.
• WYSITWIRL — (pron. "wizzy twirl") "What you see is totally worthless in real life." A derogatory term indicating that a claim of WYSIWYG has little validity.
• WYSIWYG — (pronounced "wizzywig") "What you see is what you get". In the print industry, it means that printed output will look identical to its screen representation. More recently used to refer to the style of making webpages that arose through the use of HTML-generators such as Nvu, Microsoft FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc., in which context it implies that the output may appear crude and does not transfer well across all settings
• WYGIWYGAINUC-"what you get is what you're given and it's no use complaining"

X

• X>* — Definition of something [X] as better than everything [*]. Often [X] stands for a user's handle and [*] for an organization or for another user. Sometimes crackers will use this as a boast and an insult when defacing a Web site, implying their superiority over the victim-organization and/or the Web site's administrators.
• XD — An emoticon resembling someone laughing when rotated clockwise 90°. Also xD
• ecks-dee — Another form of "XD" that emphasizes its pronunciation.
• -x0r — A suffix used by H4X0Rs to emphasize a point.
• xOMG — OMG^3
• XOXO — Hugs and kisses

Y

• y — "Why"
• y2k — "Year 2000"
• YAF — "You're a fag!"
• YGM — "You've got mail"
• YGO — Stands for Yu-Gi-Oh!, a popular manga, anime, and trading card game.
• YGP — AOLese "You've got pictures"
• YGPM — "You've got a private message"
• YHBT — "You have been trolled"
• YHL — "You have lost"
• YHPM — "You have a private message"
• YIM — Yahoo! Messenger
• YM — "Your mom!"
• YMMV — "Your mileage may vary" or "you make me vomit"
• YMSTICPC — "You Might Say That, I Couldn't Possibly Comment"
• YNK — "You never know"
• YOMANK — "You owe me a new keyboard" (after a joke causes explosive expulsion of beverage from one's mouth, or after masturbation to a pornographic image causes one to ejaculate on said keyboard)
• yr — "Your" or "you're"
• YS — "You suck"
• YSSIA — "Your spelling says it all!"
• yuo — A usually deliberate typo of "you" — Possible origins include fast and/or careless typers hitting the keys out of sequence. Like "teh", it sometimes adds emphasis to a phrase (often pairing with "teh" in doing so), for example, "Yuo are teh suck"
• YW — "you're welcome"

Z

• z00t; also "zoot" — bastardization of "w00t"
• 0day — Software or media obtained illegally before or on the day of its official release. In the hacker community this can refer to exploit code obtained before or on the day of the publication of the vulnerability.
• zig — "Cigarette".
• ZOMG — Bastardization of "OMG", meaning "oh my God". Derived from the accidental use of the "z" key when the typist intended to use the Shift function. Pronounced "zoe my God", "zee oh em gee", or "zed oh em gee" (the last two varying on the regional pronunciation of the name of the letter Z).

Effects on wider language use

Users sometimes make up Internet abbreviations on the spot, therefore many of them can seem confusing, obscure, whimsical, or even nonsensical. This type of on-the-spot abbreviating leads to such things as: OTP (on the phone) or the less common, OPTD (outside petting the dog). Another feature common to Internet communication is the truncation and morphing of words to forms that users can type more readily. These may one day creep into common usage and end up in the dictionary. Examples of this include:

• addy — "Address" (plural: "addys")
• compy — "Computer" (already has made the leap to common spoken usage)
• dun — "Don't"
• ima — "I'm going to", "I'm a gonna" (predates the Internet).
• pic — "Picture" ("pics", "pix" or "piccies" for plural)
• proggy — "Computer program"
• prolly — "Probably" (The Oxford English Dictionary traces this usage back as far as 1962)
• awsum — "Awesome"
• siggy — "Signature"

The form "teh" offers a special case of this transformation. This originated as a corruption of "the", and often pops up spontaneously when typing fast. So common has it become, in fact, that it has made the jump to purposeful usage. Typically it occurs in situations where the writer presents as self-consciously enthusiastic, mimicking the less-grammatical Internet newbie: "That movie was teh suck!!", "The fight scene with all the Agent Smiths was TEH AWESOME", etc. It occurs most commonly in "teh suck", "teh lame", and "teh shit", although "teh shit" has the same meaning as cool or "teh cool". This sarcastic usage originates with JeffK.

Similarly, netizens may use the word "liek" as a sarcastic misspelling of like, as in "I LIEK PIE". It often implies an insult to one's intelligence and/or typing ability.

The word newbie occurs almost exclusively to refer to all sorts of new users of an Internet forum or starters in a particular field of activity. It does not function as a pejorative term per se, but can do so when combined with RTFM, etc. "n00b" has much more derogatory implications than "newbie".

"own" has become a mainstream word for "to completely dominate". It probably pre-dates the Internet in some usages. It also sometimes appears spelt "pwn" owing to a common typing error due to the proximity of the "p" and "o" keys on a QWERTY keyboard. This spelling "error" sometimes get verbally pronounced "Pone" or "Pawn", although more commonly Internet users simply pronounce it as "Own".

See also

• Jargon File
• Avatar (virtual reality)
• Abbreviation
• Acronym
• African American Vernacular English
• Emoticon
• Leet
• List of computing and IT abbreviations
• Slang
• List of phrases inspired by currently stationary
• Txt

External links

• E-mail and Online Chat Acronyms
• Internet Slang Translator & Dictionary
• Jargon File webpage
• FOLDOC — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
• Acronym Finder—searchable acronyms and abbreviations site (over 400,000 entries with over 25,000 slang/chat/Internet entries)
• BIBLIA — Ben's Incredible Big List of Initialisms and Acronyms
• UrbanDictionary.com (Warning: Possibly offensive and sexual words on this site.)
• NetLingo.com The Internet Dictionary
• Parents' primer to computer slang from Microsoft