OT What do all the abreviations mean?

perhaps I am leaving myself wide open for abuse but I would sure like to know what all these abbreviations mean. I figure that OT means off topic and FS = for sale. I have been wondering about LoL, FA, WTD and others.

Many of these abbreviations are very old, some have been made up more recently.

FA = For Auction (probably on Ebay.com) LOL = Laughing out loud ROFLMAO = Rolling on the floor laughing my a$$ off VW = Volkswagen

You'll see others such as TTFN that date back almost 100 years. (Ta Ta For Now) It dates back to when telegraph was the best way to move a message fast. Since it is so hard to send one letter at a time, telegraphers started abbreviating things. Hows the Weather became HW WX or WX? How are you became HW R U? and so forth. When e-mail became available, some of the first ones to use it were already radio amateurs and knew the telegrapher abbreviations, as they used them, too. So they started using them online, since 300 baud isn't a very fast speed, either. And in those days, you paid for the connection by the minute. The more they could cut out of a message without loss of understanding by most of the others who read it, the better.

Charles of Kankakee

WTD = What To Do ? ;)) WTF = What The F*** ? ;))

what all these abbreviations mean. I figure that OT means off topic and FS = for sale. I have been wondering about LoL, FA, WTD and others.

I gathered together the more popular Usenet Acronyms and put them on my web site:

Speedy Jim

Makes me feel old

I remember when you had to learn all the abbreviations before you dipped your toe into a newsgroup or get badly flamed flamed ! I notice people dont like they used to either . Such a waste of bandwidth !!!

I ought to read up on AUP for news these days.

Come to th> Robert wrote:

perhaps I am leaving myself wide open for abuse but I would sure like to know what all these abbreviations mean. I figure that OT means off topic and FS = for sale. I have been wondering about LoL, FA, WTD and others.

Many of these abbreviations are very old, some have been made up more recently.

FA = For Auction (probably on Ebay.com) LOL = Laughing out loud ROFLMAO = Rolling on the floor laughing my a$$ off VW = Volkswagen

You'll see others such as TTFN that date back almost 100 years. (Ta Ta For Now) It dates back to when telegraph was the best way to move a message fast. Since it is so hard to send one letter at a time, telegraphers started abbreviating things. Hows the Weather became HW WX or WX? How are you became HW R U? and so forth. When e-mail became available, some of the first ones to use it were already radio amateurs and knew the telegrapher abbreviations, as they used them, too. So they started using them online, since 300 baud isn't a very fast speed, either. And in those days, you paid for the connection by the minute. The more they could cut out of a message without loss of understanding by most of the others who read it, the better.

Charles of Kankakee

you forgot FOAD and BOHICA!

Ken Juneau, Ak

.................I still like the classic simplicity and directness of AMF. And of course, there's a lot to be said for the more elaborate and even somewhat elegant ESADMF.

timmy

OMG STFU alrteady, LOL :)

Jan