From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Re: Two more acronyms (real)
Keywords: mego rotfl smiley emoticon acronym
Date: 28 Sep 92 00:21:43 GMT
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario

music@erich.triumf.ca (FRED W. BACH) writes:

>     How come the old CBC can come up with these and we didn't know
> about them?  ;-) :-) <--- incidentally, these are "emoticons" .  We
> used to call them "smileys" or "smilies". ;-)

From a moderately outdated copy of the jargon file:

============ THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.8.3, 25 MAR 1991 ============

emoticon: /ee-moh'ti-con/ n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an
   emotional state in email or news.  Hundreds have been proposed, but
   only a few are in common use.  These include:

     :-) Smiley face (indicates humor, laughter, or friendliness)
     :-( Frowney face (indicates sadness, anger, or upset)
     ;-) Half-smiley ({ha ha only serious})
         Also known as "semi-smiley" or "winkey face".
     :-/ Wry face

   It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on
   the CMU {bboard} systems around 1980.  He later wrote "I wish I
   had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for
   posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that
   would soon pollute all the world's communication channels."  (GLS
   confirms that he remembers this original posting).

   Of these, the first two are by far the most frequently encountered.
   Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX;
   see also {bixie}.  On {USENET}, `smiley' is often used as a
   generic synonymous with {emoticon}, as well as specifically for the
   happy-face emoticon.

   Note for the {newbie}: overuse of the smiley is a mark of
   loserhood!  More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that
   you've gone over the line.

MEGO: /me'goh/ or /mee'goh/ [My Eyes Glaze Over, often Mine Eyes
   Glazeth (sic) Over, attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn]
   Also `MEGO factor'.  1. n. Handwaving intended to confuse the
   listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does
   not want to admit to not understanding what is going on.  MEGO is
   usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a
   high proportion of {TLA}s.  2. excl. An appropriate response to
   MEGO tactics.  3. Among non-hackers this term often refers not to
   behavior which causes the eyes to glaze, but the eye-glazing
   reaction itself, which may be triggered by the mere threat of
   technical detail as effectively as by an actual excess of it.

talk mode: n. A feature supported by UNIX, ITS and some other OSes
   which 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.  Some of these are
   identical to (and probably derived from) Morse-code jargon used by
   ham-radio amateurs going back to the 1920s.

     BCNU      Be seeing you.
     BTW       By the way...  Lower-case also works.
     BYE?      Are you ready to unlink?  (This is the standard way to
               end a talk mode conversation; the other person types BYE
               to confirm, or else continues the conversation.)
     CUL       See you later.
     ENQ?      Are you busy?  Expects ACK or NAK in return.
     FOO?      A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  Often used in the
               case of unexpected links, meaning also "Sorry if I
               butted in..." (linker) or "What's up?" (linkee).
     FYI       For your information...
     FYA       For your amusement...
     GA        Go ahead (used when two people have tried to type
               simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to the other).
     GRMBL     grumble --- expresses disquiet or disagreement.
     HELLOP    A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  (An instance of the
               "-P" convention.)
     JAM       Just a minute... Equivalent to SEC...
     MIN       Same as JAM.
     NIL       No (see {NIL}).
     O         Over (lower-case works too).
     OO        Over and out (lower-case works too).
     /         Another form of "Over to you" (from x/y as "x over y")
     \         Lambda (used in discussing LISPy things).
     OBTW      Oh, by the way...
     R U THERE?  Are you there?
     SEC       Wait a second (sometimes written SEC...).
     T         Yes (see the main entry for {T}).
     TNX       Thanks.
     TNX 1.0E6 Thanks a million (humorous).
     TNXE6     Ditto.
     WRT       With Regard To or With Respect To.
     WTF       The universal interrogative particle.  WTF knows what
               it means?
     WTH       What the hell?
     <double newline> When the typing party has finished, he types two newlines
               to signal that he is done; this leaves a blank line between
               individual "speeches" in the conversation, making it easier to
               re-read the preceding text.
     <name>:   When three or more terminals are linked, each speech is
               preceded by the typist's login name or handle and a colon (or a
               hyphen) to indicate who is typing.  The login name often is
               shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single letter) during a
               very long conversation.
     /\/\/\    A giggle or chuckle.  On a MUD, this usually means 
               `earthquake fault'.

   Most of the above sub-jargon is used at both Stanford and MIT.
   Several of these are also common in {email}, esp. FYI, FYA, BTW,
   BCNU, WTF, and CUL.  A few other abbreviations have been reported
   from commercial networks such as GEnie and CompuServe where on-line
   `live' chat including more than two people is common and usually
   involves a more `social' context, notably:

     <g>      grin
     <gr&d>   grinning, running and ducking
     BBL      be back later
     BRB      be right back
     HHOJ     ha ha only joking
     HHOS     {ha ha only serious}
     IMHO     in my humble opinion (see {IMHO})
     LOL      laughing out loud
     ROTF     rolling on the floor
     ROTFL    rolling on the floor laughing
     AFK      away from keyboard
     b4       before
     CU l8tr  see you later
     MORF     Male or Female?
     TTFN     ta-ta for now
     OIC      Oh, I see
     rehi     hello again

   Most of hese are not used at universities or in the UNIX world,
   though IMHO, ROTF, and TTFN have gained some currency there;
   conversely, most of the people who know these are unfamiliar with
   FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, {NIL}, and {T}.

   The {MUD} community uses a mixture of USENET/Internet emoticons, a
   few of the more natural of the old-style talk mode abbrevs, and
   some of the `social' list above; specifically, MUD respondents
   report use of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF, TTFN, and WTH.  The use of
   rehi is also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re- compounds and
   will frequently `rehug' or `rebonk' (see {bonk/oif}) people.  The
   word `re' by itself is taken as `re-greet'.  In general, though,
   MUDders express a preference for typing things out in full rather
   than using abbreviations; this may be due to the relative youth of
   the MUD cultures, which tend to include many touch typists and
   assume high-speed links.  The following uses specific to MUDs are
   reported:

     UOK?      Are you OK?
     THX       Thanks (mutant of TNX).  Clearly this comes in batches of
               1138 (the Lucas K).
     CU l8er   See you later (mutant of CU l8tr)
     OTT       Over the top (excessive, uncalled for)

   Some {BIFF}isms (notably the variant spelling `d00d') appear to be
   passing into wider use among some subgroups of mudders.  See also
   {hakspek}, {emoticon}, {bonk/oif}.
-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com or {uunet,revcan}!geovision!pt
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
I used to homebrew computers, now I homebrew beer.  Is this progress?
Newsgroups: rec.humor