Abbreviations For Texting: IM, Chat, and SMS Slang

I remember when I was young [I mean younger than I am now, I DID NOT mean to say I'm old, shame on you for thinking that] - now look what you made me do. I forgot what I was thinking of in the first place. Ah yes, when I was younger, I remember that my friends and me used to have a distinct way of communicating. It was a mixture of signs and slang and gestures and everything else that could possibly be used to communicate. And then there was the whole different way of text messaging, SMS messaging, emailing, etc. Of course, for SMS messaging, where there was a limit on characters [strangely enough, older cell phones had limits on characters that could be sent, 160 characters was all an SMS could contain] which led to the evolution of 'shortcuts' and text messaging symbols, a unique kind of mobile shorthand if you want to call it that. With a 160 character upper limit, these symbols and shortcuts became very important to get the entire message across. As time went by, this system of shortcuts evolved more and more so that many of these shortcuts become standard.

These days, though cell phones have done away with the 160 character upper limit, the 'shortcut' language is still in use to save money. With 160 characters counted as a single SMS, many people still try to get their entire message across in 160 characters itself, rather than paying additional amounts of money for crossing the 160 character limit. And as with everything else, this language has also evolved further, in fact so much that the other day, I got an SMS from my sister that I didn't understand at all. It seemed like total gibberish, and I had half a mind to call her and yell at her for wasting my time. Luckily for her, a younger colleague deciphered the message before any harm could be done. When I asked her later, she was surprised that I didn't understand, saying that it was a relatively simple message. Ahh, youth. Taking a look at some of the examples of messages on her phone just left me all muddled and confused. I kid you not, these messages sounded like some code or something, and I'm sure that all those government agencies [you know which ones I mean, right] would have been all excited had they caught a glimpse of them. This just led me to delve deeper into the matter, and I soon realized how out of touch I was. [read:old].

And that was just on the phone. With the Internet moving as fast as it is, IM and chat rooms have increased in popularity as well. Almost anyone who works on the Internet, or rather uses the Internet, has an IM account. What is this IM, you ask? IM or instant messaging, is an application that two or more people use to message in real time over the net. The more famous of these are AOL, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, MSN and ICQ. Very convenient if you need to talk to people who are geographically far away from you, all you need is the messenger and an Internet connection. Now this being real time, it is blazingly fast. It is just like talking, only you have to type what you want to say. If you think about that a little, you can see how having shortcuts will help you. For example: typing good morning will take longer than typing 'GM', which is the standard abbreviation for good morning in chat slang. You see where I am going with this? It is waaay faster to shorten words, make up abbreviations and use symbols that type the entire word or phrase. Unfortunately, the other party needs to understand these as well. Seeing something like 'TTYL' on you screen might boggle the mind, unless you know what it means. For the uninitiated, TTYL means Talk To You Later. There are thousands of these abbreviations and acronyms that are used in chatting and instant messaging, and there are new ones being made up everyday. When in use for a period of time, they become standard. So you might also be able to think up a few. Anyway, so you get my point. While well-known to all who use IM frequently, these might be strange for many.

So I decided that I'd put up a list of at least the more common of these abbreviations and codes and symbols and other arcane shortcuts that have totally ruined the English language. Mind, it does come in handy when you want to send of a quick message. At least it works for me [I have been notorious for my laziness in typing, I usually just call] and though I don't use it so often now as I used to, I still manage a few a week.

Abbreviations For Texting: IM, Chat, and SMS Slang

ABBR	MEANING		ABBR	MEANING		ABBR	MEANING		ABBR	MEANING
AAK	Alive And Kicking		AAR	At Any Rate		AAS	Alive And Smiling		ADN	Any Day Now
AFAIK	As Far As I Know		AFK	Away From Keyboard		AFN	That's All For Now		AOTA	All Of The Above
ASL	Age/Sex/Location		B4	Before		BAK	Back At Keyboard		BBL	Be Back Later
BBS	Be Back Soon		BCNU	Be Seeing You		b/f, BF	Boyfriend		BEG	Big Evil Grin
BFN	Bye For Now		BMA	Bite My A**		BR	Best Regards		BRB	Be Right Back
BRH	Be Right Here		BSEG	Big S**t Eatin Grin		BTA	But Then Again		BTW	By The Way
CRS	Can't Remember S**t		CU/CYA	See You		CU	Can't Understand		CUL8R	See You Later
CUOL	See You On Line		DDSS	Different Day, Same S**t		DEGT	Don't Even Go There		DIKU	Do I Know You?
DIS	Did I Say		EG	Evil Grin		EMA	E-mail Address		F2F	Face To Face
FAQ	Frequently Asked Question		FOCL	Falling Off Chair Laughing		FTS	F*** This S***		FUBAR	"Fouled" Up Beyond All Repair
FUD	Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt		FWIW	For What It's Worth		FYI	For Your Information		GA	Go Ahead
GAL	Get A Life		g/f, GF	Girlfriend		GFN	Gone For Now		GGOH	Gotta Get Outta Here
GMTA	Great Minds Think Alike		GR	Gotta Run		GR&D	Grining, Running, and Ducking		GTRM	Going To Read Mail
H&K	Hugs and Kisses		HAGD	Have A Good Day		HAGO	Have A Good One		HB	Hurry Back
HTH	Hope That Helps		IAC	In Any Case		IB	I'm Back		IC	I See
IDK	I Don't Know		IDTS	I Don't Think So		IANAL	I Am Not A Lawyer		ICQ	I Seek You
ILU/ILY	I Love You		IM	Instant Message		IMHO	In My Humble Opinion		IMO	In My Opinion
IOH	I'm Out of Here		IOW	In Other Words		IRL	In Real Life		IYO	In Your Opinion
IOW	In Other Words		JAS	Just A Second		JIC	Just In Case		JK	Just Kidding
JMO	Just My Opinion		JW	Just Wondering		KIT	Keep In Touch		L8R	Later
LMAO	Laughing My Ass Off		LFFAO	Laughing My F***(freaking) Ass Off		LOL	Laughing Out Loud		LTNS	Long Time No See
LTS	Laughing To One's Self		LY	Love Ya		LYL	Love You Lots		NE1	Anyone
NFW	No Feasible (or F***ing) Way		NIMBY	Not In My Back Yard		NM	Never Mind		NP	No Problem
NRN	No Response Necessary/ Not Right Now		NT	No Thanks		OBTW	Oh, By The Way		OIC	Oh, I See
OMG	Oh My God		OTOH	On The Other Hand		OTOMH	Off the Top of My Head		P911	parents in room
PEBCAK	Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard		PMJI	Pardon Me for Jumping In		POTS	Parents Over The Shoulder		QT	Cutie
ROFL	Rolling On Floor Laughing		ROTFLMAO	Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off		SOL	Shit Out Of Luck		SOTA	State Of The Art
SPST	Same Place, Same Time		SSDD	Same S**t, Different Day		TAFN	That's All For Now		TTTT	These Things Take Time
TTYL	Talk To You Later		WFM	Works For Me		WIIFM	What's In It For Me?		WTG	Way To Go
WWJD	What Would Jesus Do?		YMMV	Your Mileage May Vary		YR	Yea, Right		YW	You're Welcome

Some Not So Common Chat Slang and Abbreviations

Abbreviation	Description/Meaning
AFK	Away From Keyboard
AFPOE	A Fresh Pair Of Eyes
AIAMU	And I'm A Monkey's Uncle
AKA	Also Known As
ANFSCD	And Now For Something Completely Different
AOAS	All Of A Sudden
AWLTP	Avoiding Work Like The Plague
AYSOS	Are You Stupid Or Something
AYTMTB	And You're Telling Me This Because
BFO	Blinding Flash of the Obvious
BICBW	But I Could Be Wrong
BOTOH	But On The Other Hand
CMIW	Correct Me If I'm Wrong
DHTB	Don't Have The Bandwidth
DHYB	Don't Hold Your Breath
DKDC	Don't Know Don't Care
DQMOT	Don't Quote Me On This
ESO	Equipment Smarter than Operator
FTBOMH	From The Bottom Of My Heart
GALGAL	Give A Little Get A Little
GFETE	Grinning From Ear To Ear
GMAB	Give Me A Break
HITAKS	Hang In There And Keep Smiling
HIOOC	Help, I'm Out Of Coffee
HTNOTH	Hit The Nail On The Head
IBIWISI	I'll Believe It When I See It
ISWYM	I See What You Mean
J2LYK	Just To Let You Know
LMTCB	Left Message To Call Back
LOL	Laughing Out Loud
LOPSOD	Long On Promises, Short On Delivery
MTCW	My Two Cents Worth
MTFBWY	May The Force Be With You
NIMJD	Not In My Job Description
TOBG	This Oughta Be Good
WTTTM	Without Thinking Too Much
WYSIWYG	What You See Is What You Get

Some Romantic SMS Slang and Abbreviations

Abbreviation	Description/Meaning
ALIWanIsU	All I Want Is You
ALOrO	All Or Nothing
AML	All My Love
BaBitsU	Baby It's You
BBSD	Be Back Soon Darling
BGWM	Be Gentle With Me
CSThnknAU	Can't Stop Thinking About You
CUIMD	See You In My Dreams
4EVRYRS	Forever Yours
GMeSumLuvin	Gimme Some Lovin'
GrwOldWivMe	Grow Old With Me
HITULThtILuvU	Have I Told You Lately That I Love You
HldMeClse	Hold Me Close
ICLWYL	I Can't Live Without Your Love
IJC2SalLuvU	I Just Called To Say I Love You
ImT14U	I'm The One For You
IOWAN2BWU	Only Want To Be With You
LtsGt2gthr	Let's Get Together
Luv2LuvUBab	Love To Love You Baby
M$ULkeCraZ	Miss You Like Crazy
RmbaYaMne	Remember You're Mine
SvnALMyLuv4U	Saving All My Love For You
SWALK	Sent With A Loving Kiss

Whew! ISTICSF! [I'm So Tired I Could Sleep Forever]...see I told you it's easy to make your own slang. Just make sure that the other person understands it. Otherwise you will end up wasting more time typing out the explanation as well. And wasn't all this made just to save time? This is just the tip of the iceberg though. There are many many more abbreviations and slang that are used in IM, SMS and chat, that would take me forever to cover. However, the lists above are pretty exhaustive and if you know most of them, you will be able to hold your own with serious chatters on the net. So go through them, and maybe the next time you chat with someone, you won't end up feeling like you are talking to some martian. Good Luck!