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Message and Chat Speak Primer #40562 05/23/98 01:15 AM
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JTimothyA Offline OP
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Lorraine Healy requested explanation of the shorthand many folks have adopted to save keystrokes, and inject the expressions and 'body language' missing in on-line conversation and messages.

Here's the start of a list of commonly found abbreviations, netiquette, and other on-line arcana. At some point I'll alphabetize and organize.

I've come from the CompuServe dialect of on-line speak (started with CIS in early '80's) so these may be somewhat colored by this 'regionalization'. Other dialects come from AOL, Prodigy, Internet Newsgroups, etc. Feel free to list your own favorites and I'll incorporate. (There's a Master's Sociology thesis in here for someone...)

---- Abbreviations ----
afaik: As Far As I Know
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (technically this is an acronym - computer people love acronyms)
fwiw: For What Its Worth
iac: In Any Case
imo: In My Opinion
imho: In My Humble Opinion
ianal: I am not a lawyer
lmk: Let Me Know
LOL: Laughing Out Loud
Rotfl: Rolling On The Floor, Laughing (can be abbreviated as ROFL)
Rotflmao: Rolling On The Floor Laughing My A** Off
tdnbw: This Does Not Bode Well
tia: Thanks In Advance
wrt: With Regard To
ymmv: Your Mileage May Vary - ie., 'your experience may be different than mine'

----Expressions----
Expressions are usually found in messages but I tend to use these in chat conversations as well. To distiquish them from words, expressions are often placed in brackets. Usually these have angle brackets, but those don't work well here, so I'll use square brackets. Expressions are found more on CompuServe than AOL.

[g] = grin, grining
[s] = smile, smiling
[vbg] = very big grin
[vbseg] = a particular type of very big grin - you figure this one out. ;->
[g,d&r] = grinning, ducking & running (part expression part abbreviaton, this is used when making a smart remark about someone but is said in a friendly, jesting way.)

----Smilies----
Smilies represent a facial expression created with characters. (lean your head to the left to see the face) There are a ton of these and new ones are made up all the time. Somewhere I have a list of 100 or so which I'll try to dig out.

:-) standard with nose
standard w/o nose (colon + right paren)
:*) clown nose
:^) pointy nose
8-) with glasses
8*) clown nose w/ glasses
many variants - you get the idea

;-) Raised eyebrow or winking
;-> Winking smarty, sardonic, sarcastic
:-p sticking tongue out
:-( Frowning
unhappiness (colon + left paren)
%-) screwy, confused
:-| serious or said with a straight face
:-O yikes, surprised
#:-) crewcut
(8-) bald with glasses
:-)> beard
:-{) moustache
:-Q cigarette

O:-)> St. John Chidester, our host (halo w/ beard - JC entered sainthood on AOL)

See the Beaver Smiley!

----Signatures----
Many folks adopt a stylized signature for signing their messages. John often signs his with his 'St. John' smiley (above). You've probably seen mine as well. Signatures can be any set of marks with or without your name. The trick to being recognized by your signature is to use it consistently and for it to be different from other signatures. When choosing a signature, choose well, you'll want to live with it for a long time.

Examples:
-=Mike=-
BoB
JoYcE

----Netiquette----
Netiquette is simply the "do's and don'ts" of accepted on-line behaviour, or a description of the way people can act or express themselves on-line.

SHOUTING: The first thing to know is don't use all capital letters, unless you mean to shout. SHOUTING IS TACKY AND ITS VERY HARD TO READ AN ENTIRE MESSAGE POSTED IN ALL CAPS. So please don't do it unless you really really mean it.

Emphasis: you can inflect emphasis (similar to underlining) by surrounding a word or words with astericks. This is a *really* neat forum!

Flaming: if you make nasty or perjorative remarks attacking another person or business, or thing, or whatever, this is known as flaming. Flaming is generally frowned upon and if you do it regularly you'll be known as a flamer. A thread which turns nasty or has lots of name calling is known as a 'flame war'. If you must criticize, criticize a person's ideas or statements, but not the person themself.

That's all for now. Feel free to append to this message and suggest your own.

Rgds,
__
/im
Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40563 05/23/98 02:18 AM
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Actually,I make my 'smiley signature' using the zero key rather than the letter O. Gives my halo a better perspective. ROTFL.

0:>)

Although I have a moustache and full beard, I think it makes the whole thing too long to be fun: 0(:=)> (halo, balding, beard & moustache). And since 'smileys are long and narrow, there's no way to show how overweight you are.

I like Katherine Waterson's unique 'signature' KAT =(^+^)= (That's not quite right, but you get the idea).

The 'sainthood' was the result of a flame posting by someone on AOL who commented that "other people come to John's defense like he was a saint or something."




[This message has been edited.]

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40564 05/23/98 10:23 PM
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Gee, I feel kind of like Cinderella. I makes a wish and *voila* a really neat, fairly complete, funny, well written chat speak primer magically appears! Thanks Crank! Now you KNOW I'll be up until all hours of the morning trying to come up with some neat and unique smiley face.

Hey, how does one do WRINKLES?

I feel like I should be saying something more pithy, but I'm enjoying the h-e-double hockeysticks out of this forum thing! Thanks to you all for making me LOL, ROTFL and generally sit here with VBGs smiling at my computer. :-)-8-<= (My smile is definitely my best asset.)

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40565 05/24/98 08:49 AM
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Lorraine, Oh my!

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40566 05/24/98 08:16 PM
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Lorraine Healy Offline
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Todd: "Lorraine, Oh my!" What does *that* mean????? Have I unknowingly committed a faux pas? Ya gotta help me here! What have I done?????

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40567 05/24/98 11:46 PM
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Lorraine, you've done noting wrong. It was just my little attempt at humor that had something lost in the computer context.

Good work though on coming up with a creative and unique signature!

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40568 05/25/98 02:08 AM
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Perhaps Todd was just admiring your 8s, Lorraine.

0:>)

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40569 05/25/98 09:37 AM
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Lorraine Healy Offline
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ROTFLMAO, St. John!!!!!!!!

Todd, phew! Thanks for the reassurance.

Hey, what happens if the smiley signature you select is *not* unique? There's no "copyright infringement" problems one has to worry about, is there? :-)
Have a safe Memorial Day all!
Still ROTFLMAO,
:-)-8-<=

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40570 05/25/98 12:57 PM
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>>Perhaps Todd was just admiring...

I thought that remark but didn't think I would get away unedited!

Rgds,
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/im [*self* moderated]

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40571 05/26/98 02:06 PM
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Maybe I should take a lesson from Tim and self moderate myself! I never thought a little three word post would create so many replies.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40572 05/26/98 09:34 PM
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>>Maybe I should take a lesson from Tim and self moderate myself!

Nah - this is all pretty tame fun.

Besides - I need practice at moderation. [g]

Rgds,
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/im [Eight is Enough?]

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40573 07/08/98 01:25 PM
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Tim's original post was such helpful information I've simply added this reply to make the thread fall back into the list of recent ones again.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40574 08/22/98 09:54 PM
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message renewal

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40575 09/16/98 10:06 AM
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More Abbreviations from at AT&T Site:

AAMOF As A Matter Of Fact
AFAIK As Far As I Know
AKA Also Known As
BFN Bye For Now
BRB Be Right Back
BTW By The Way
CU See You
DIIK Darned If I Know
FOAF Friend of a Friend
F2F Face-To-Face
FYI For Your Information
HHOJ Ha Ha Only Joking
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO In My Opinion
IOW In Other Words
KISS Keep It Simple Stupid
MEGO My Eyes Glaze Over
NRN No Response Necessary
OTOH On The Other Hand
PMJI Pardon My Jumping In
ROTFL Rolling On The Floor Laughing
SO Significant Other
TIA Thanks In Advance

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40576 09/16/98 10:08 AM
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More Smiley's from the same source:

More Smileys
"Smileys" are often included in a message in order to convey emotion. Below are some of the more common Smileys in use on the Internet. Also called EMOTICONS, they are combinations of characters that indicate emotions. Such as:
:-) I'm happy (basic Smiley)
:-( I'm Sad
;-) Winking
:-D Laughing
:-| Indifference
:-# My Lips are sealed
:-x Not talking, being quiet
:-> Sarcasm
:-/ Skepticism
:-\/ Shouting
;.^) Smirking
8-) Wearing Sunglasses
:-P Sticking out Tongue
:-@ Screaming Smiley




[This message has been edited by JChidester.]

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40577 10/17/98 06:00 PM
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FredKuhl Offline
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Didn't want to lose this one, and the 30 days have flown by

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40578 12/27/98 12:10 PM
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Bringing this 'oldie-but-goodie' into the visual range of those who've newly discovered these forums.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40579 01/18/99 09:09 PM
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Time to bring it back again
CYU

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40580 02/07/99 01:18 PM
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Once again, this 'oldie but goodie' needs to be in the vision range of newbies and oldies alike.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40581 02/08/99 12:36 AM
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Since this is such an informative piece, should it have it's own section for easy reference??

Also, is there an "easy" way (other than the obvious hard copy) to have the information readily available during chats?

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40582 02/08/99 02:58 AM
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Sure is Polly, just open a second browser window before your start to chat and go to this thread. Then chat in your first browser instance.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40583 02/08/99 03:55 AM
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Opening a new browser window can be accomplished by clicking on the icon you use to open the original window.

Sometimes you want to open a second window when looking at a long list (such as an ebay list.) Those long lists take time to build. If you click on a link on this long list, the page you wanted will REPLACE the long list. If you use your "BACK" button, that long list will have to rebuild again.

Instead from the long list, hold down the shift key while clicking on the link. That will open the link in a NEW window. To return to the list, just close the new window. The list will be there and you won't have to wait for it to rebuild.

We could put a link to this thread into an "Announcement" that each new user would see when they come into that particular Forum.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40584 02/09/99 01:21 AM
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FredKuhl Offline
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Pretty shifty!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40585 02/09/99 01:23 AM
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Thanks JC, I was remiss in not explaining further. Another tip for quickie access is to Bookmark this page in your browser.

Here's a link to a whole page of Smiley's at the Netlingo site. And yes, Sean, there's even a Beaver Smiley! Lorraine's is there too.

Click here See the Beaver Smiley and more!

I'll post this link in the original thread as well.

Rgds,
([( (Robocopy smiley)

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40586 09/12/99 01:38 AM
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Bringing this oldie back into view for the Newbies.

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40587 09/18/99 12:45 AM
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Information for someone -
I just tried the link in the announcement at the mail slot at the top of this forum and received the error 'page not found'. I guess this link for the Chat Speak Primer is old and nothing is at the address. Just thought someone should know just in case new people or people like me with nothing better to do try the link.

Jim


Jim
Dr. Who ?
Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40588 09/18/99 01:11 AM
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Dave H Offline
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Jim,

The link pointsto the LighthouseKeepers web site, where the forums were previously hosted. Need to replace the "www.lighthousekeepers.com" with the "http://216.46.163.97" address and it will work. However, the link is to this very forum we are now posting in!

Dave

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40589 09/18/99 11:35 PM
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Quote:
However, the link is to this very forum we are now posting in!


That's right. These forums are hosted by LighthouseKeepers.com, NOT HarbourLights.com.

Here's a larger print version of the fine print at the bottom of each forum page:

Quote:
The Collector Forums are provided independently by Lighthouse Keepers as a service for the exchange of information among Harbour Lights collectors. Postings here do not reflect the views, opinions, and activities of Lighthouse Keepers, Harbour Lights or B.C. Younger & Associates, Inc.


Now you know the rest of the story...

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40590 01/26/00 01:29 AM
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a forum goodie!

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40591 12/03/00 02:00 AM
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Still funny after all these years.

I wonder what happened to Lorraine Healy who's 8's caused so many ROTFL reactions?

Lorraine, we miss you!

Re: Message and Chat Speak Primer #40592 12/03/00 12:05 PM
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]---D


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