Internet Shorthand 6

[Dimandja]

Do you have any interesting examples of creative ways people use their keyboards to express themselves online?

Also, many popular expressions have been reduced to an alphabet soup that I find hard to digest. For instance "AFAIK" --- my stomach still turned even when I found out what it stands for. And, what in the world is "IMO"? :s

 

[sleipnir214]

SF0751:
Since you seem to be a fan of World Wide Words, too, do you subscribe to that site's newsletter?

This was in the posting from last weekend:

PORT OUT, STARBOARD HOME Success beckons and the unfamiliarity of the gesture leaves me bemused and uncertain. Penguin Books will be publishing my book of this title on 1 July (you may be certain that you run no risk of missing the event). It features and debunks the stories that people invent about the history of words, for example that "golf" stands for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden", that a "wake" was called that because the guests sat around to check that the corpse didn't wake up, and that "posh" is an initialism for the words "Port Out, Starboard Home" once printed on steamship tickets. British subscribers who take the Daily Telegraph will find it is serialising the book from today for the next 20 Saturdays. It has also been chosen by several book clubs and the advance orders are looking extraordinarily healthy. Might I have accidentally written a best seller? Watch this space for more news in the weeks ahead. US subscribers will have to wait until October this year, when the Smithsonian Institution Press publishes the book under the title Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds (no, I didn't choose it, but these are three of the words featured in the book). For more, see

http://www.worldwidewords.org/posh.htm

.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[Dimandja]

More on 'posh', from

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorp.htm:

The earliest recorded use of posh to mean swank is from the 25 September 1918 issue of the British humor magazine Punch. In 1903, P.G. Wodehouse in Tales of St. Austin's used push to mean fashionable. Whether this was a printer's error or Wodehouse actually meant to use push is unknown (several later editors "corrected" this to read posh).

 

[Chance1234]

theres another thing about posh being an old romany gypsy word

Chance,

Filmmaker, gentleman and up for parole shortly

http://WWW.5YLAC.S5.COM

,

http://WWW.HOWTOBESPOOKY.CO.UK

 

[LaurelLee]

I guess that change can be hard to swallow sometimes. Acronyms that have been around for ages are easily accepted, but newly invented phrases and acronyms are easily stumbled over, which is where I see the problem being (not that that is a REAL problem ). If they stand the test of time, they begin to roll of one's tongue. As the Internet is still rather young, a lot of the vocabulary that has sprung up as a result of it has not been readily accepted at the outset. Only time will tell!!

"TANSTAAFL" (with three As instead of two, standing for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch") is from Robert Heinlein's classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. At the end of the book, the phrase became the motto of the Free Lunar Republic.

I learn something new every day. I'll have to check this one out!








___________________________________________________________
With your thoughts you create the world--Shakyamuni Buddha

 

[CasperTFG]

I sometimes find myself using these acronyms in speech. Just the other day i was talking with a friend on the phone and after he finished a funny tale, I replied with LOL... I actually pronounced lol while instead of laughing... Now that is scary...

Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[madelca100]

My two cents worth.

Technically an Acronym is a word formed from taking the first letter (usually) of each word in a phrase.

Most of the 'words' discussed so far are actually Initialisms.

SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apperatus), NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) and WAC (Woman's Army Corp) are pronounced as words and are therefore acronyms.

IBM, TLA, SOS, FYI, RSVP, etc. are pronounced as letters and therefore are not acronyms.

mike

p.s. I had pretty much given up trying to correct this misconception, but decided to take one more shot at it.

 

[Grenage]

CasperTFG,

I should imagine that is more common than you might think. I myself have the same problem and I often notice my tongue readying itself to pronounce an 'L' when I laugh.

There are so many acronyms, I picked up the majority of mine during my IRC days.

IMHO; which is the more commonly used In My Humble Opinion.
JSYK; Just So You Know.

Depending on your country some also have different meanings:

GTG; while most English use this as Good To Go, most Americans seem to view it as Got To Go. This alone has caused me enough problems to stop using it.

 

[LaurelLee]

madelca100 --

Good to know! I always had a suspicion that I was using the wrong word, and apparently not too many people realize that acronym is incorrect. Now I can dazzle my freinds with that one. I will now take up your crusade to correct the misconception!



___________________________________________________________
With your thoughts you create the world--Shakyamuni Buddha

 

[MdnghtPgmr]

Just saw another one in another forum here, YMMV = Your Milage May Vary. Thought I'd toss it in...

 

[GlenJohnson]

This is from one of my PC teachers on troubleshooting computers. He told me most of my problems will be caused by, (And I can tell the user, without fear of them knowing), PEBCAM.
Problem Exists Between Chair And Monitor.
Think about it.

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago
Johnson Computers

 

[Stella740pl]

Rosie,

Star for you. After just a couple of days I found your link to be absolutely indispensable. Thanks!

Stella.

 

[rosieb]

Stella
Thanks for that.

I can't remember where I found it, if you click on the [blue]Fun Buzzword Acronyms![/blue] link at the bottom of the page, it generates wonderful meaningless initialisms such as Total Transitional Contingency (TTC) - great if you want to have fun with a (draft) report or you're dealing with Marketing!!!


Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)

 

[kcongdon]

Meanest shorthand I know (an old Help Desk favorite)

ID10T, as in an I-D-1-0-T error...That's the number ten between the "D" and the "T".

 

[jcrater]

Along with the ID-10-T error, I've also heard "I/O" error (idiot operator).

 

[willir]

Oh man, are we picking on the end user again? I hate EKE - External Keyboard Error !

 

[sdraper]

DEU
Defective
End
User

Sam

 

[xlbo]

variation on an old war favourite:

SNUFU
Situation Normal - User F*** Up

Rgds, Geoff

Never test the depth of water with both feet

Help us to help you by reading FAQ222-2244 before you ask a question

 

[PS42]

My two cents worth

PLOKTA = Press Lots Of Keys To Abort

 

[ESquared]

PEBCAM is new to me. I always heard it as

PEBKAC - Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

Everyone knows the origin of foo, right?

 

[Dimandja]

What foo?