Internet Slang
Published: 2019-08-11 21:06:04

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title: "Internet Slang"
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### Origins

#### SMS

Limit of characters for SMS stimulated usage of shorter forms of common phrases, for example, ASAP (as soon as possible), 2 (to), 4 (for), y (why), r (are), u (you), etc.

#### Chats

The need to type fast stimulated usage of shorter forms of common phrases, for example, brb (be right back), AFK (away from keyboard), etc.

Text is a poor medium for casual conversation because a lot of nonverbal information is lost (gestures, facial expression, voice tone, body language), to compensate this people come up with emoticons, for example, `:-)`. Later idea of emoticons transformed into Emojis.

#### Forums

Online communities gave birth to a lot of slang and phenomena jargon, for example [troll](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Troll) (someone who deliberately pisses people off online to get a reaction), [lurker](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lurker) (someone that follows the forum but doesn’t post).

#### Memes

**[Meme](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme)**

1. an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.
2. an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.

Some internet slang refers to memes.

#### Technological jargon

When you deal with the internet you have to face some technological jargon, for example, router, switch, network, domain, handle, etc.

### Forms

#### Abbreviation

[Abbreviation](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation) - shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole word or phrase. For example, "Amt" is an abbreviation for "amount."

#### Acronym

[Acronym](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym) - a word (such as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term.

#### Emoticon

[Emoticon](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emoticon) - a group of keyboard characters (such as :-)) that typically represents a facial expression or suggests an attitude or emotion and that is used especially in computerized communications (such as e-mail).

#### Emoji

[Emoji](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emoji) - any of various small images, symbols, or icons used in text fields in electronic communication (as in text messages, e-mail, and social media) to express the emotional attitude of the writer, convey information succinctly, communicate a message playfully without using words, etc. See [emojipedia](https://emojipedia.org/).

#### ASCII art

[ASCII art](https://fsymbols.com/text-art/) - text art is one of the arts enabled by the computer age. It's about making text pictures with text symbols. For example, `=^.^=`, `ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ`.

> Photo by Ludovic Toinel on Unsplash