abbrevs

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

Virginia Krenn <asdxvlk -at- OKWAY -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU> asks:
|}      Could someone please send me an explanation of these abreviations that
|}      I see so often? I'm relatively new to the Internet and haven't figured
|}      them all out, yet.

The best source is the Jargon file, jargon2912.txt, here are some of my
faves:

:ha ha only serious: [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK,
   `Ha Ha Only Kidding'] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS)
   that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse.  Applied
   especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both
   intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of
   truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody.

:IMHO: // [from SF fandom via USENET; abbreviation for `In My Humble
   Opinion'] Also seen in variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My
   Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion).

:Real Soon Now: [orig. from SF's fanzine community, popularized by
   Jerry Pournelle's column in `BYTE'] adv. 1. Supposed to be
   available (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now according
   to somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical.  2. When one's
   gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one to get to it (in
   other words, don't hold your breath).  Often abbreviated RSN.

:RTFM: /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The F***ing
   Manual'.  1. Used by {guru}s to brush off questions they
   consider trivial or annoying.

:RTM: /R-T-M/ [USENET: abbreviation for `Read The Manual']
   1. Politer variant of {RTFM}.

:talk mode: n. A feature supported by UNIX, ITS, and some other
   OSes that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time
   on-line conversation.

   Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
   which are not used orally.

     OBTW
          oh, by the way
     WTF
          the universal interrogative particle; WTF knows what it means?
     WTH
          what the hell?
     <g>
          grin
     <gr&d>
          grinning, running, and ducking
     LOL
          laughing out loud
     ROTF
          rolling on the floor
     ROTFL
          rolling on the floor laughing

    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "She understood, as he did, that all writing
was infernally boring and futile, but that it had to be done out of respect
for tradition"                  --Stanislaw Lem