abbrevs

Subject: abbrevs
From: Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 15:12:34 CDT

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


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