Jargon and Acronyms

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Several attendees of our training sessions have asked for a jargon/acronym page for email.

Contrary to how new users may feel, there is not a conspiracy out there to try to exclude them from newsgroups and email. Any group that spends time together develops its own shorthand notation; it is not surprising that people who are forced to use the unnatural action of typing would be inclined to use short hand and acronyms.

Many come from Usenet newsgroups, some of the more "gestural" ones come from Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Obviously it would be nice if seasoned users not pepper novices with an enormous amount of jargon. But the fact is, nobody knows you are a newcomer to the Internet, you are just another member of the Internet family. So to prepare you for the inevitable acronyms of email, here are some of the most common acronyms:

• AFAICS
   As Far As I Can See

  BTW

   By The Way

  FYI

   For Your Information

  IMHO

   In My Humble/Honest Opinion

  TIA

    Thanks In Advance (also sometimes written advTHANKSance)

  RTFM

    Read The F****** Manual ("Manual" here refers to any documentation)

  LOL

    [I] Laughed Out Loud [at what you wrote]

  ROTFL

    [I am] Rolling On The Floor Laughing [at what you wrote]

  RSN

    Real Soon Now

  YMMV

  Your Mileage May Vary (disclaimer on auto fuel efficiency ratings in U.S.)

A term that isn’t used but should be is -- "NRN", for "No Response Needed". Often, with a lack of body language, it isn't clear when an email-based conversation should be ended. One member of the Internet, Peter Wone, suggests that "NRSVP" for "non respondez-vous s'il vous plais", or "pleast do not respond" is easier to guess than "NRN".

To unravel jargon and technical Internet terms, you should look up the Internet Literacy Consultants' Glossary of Internet Terms.

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