Monday, January 31, 2011

BTW RU LOL? (Know what they mean?)

As electronic communication (email, chat, sms, mms) becomes more and more pervasive in our world, users of English as a second language are also beginning to use acronyms on a frequent basis.

Here are some of the most popular ones:

FAQ Frequently Asked Question
Thx Thanks
TIA Thanks in advance
IMO In my opinion
CU See you
FYI For your information
BTW By the way
Fwd Forward
LOL Laughing out loud
2 to
U you
RU are you

And there are many, many more. The important thing is that you keep in mind that these acronyms are to be used for business friendly or informal situations. In other words, don't use them for very formal communication.

For more information, you may also check out this very complete Acronym List on the web. There you will find a very extensive list, some formal, some informal.

Acronyms are almost a way of life in English speaking countries. So just for fun, here's a video that tells a silly little story with acronyms. Watch it and see how many you know... and how many you don't? Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. Er - BTW and others listed are not an acronyms. They are initialisms.
    It might seem picky but this is an English forum...

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  2. Hey Anonymous, technically speaking some of those are intialisms. But if we want to get that technical, we could also talk about backronyms and macronyms as well. But as you may have noticed (or not), initialisms are usually listed in Acronyms lists (probably for the sake of simplicity). And that's what this blog is about: simplicity. We only strive to bring things down to Earth for users of English as a "second" language. So thanks for your imput and be sure to share your blog with us! Cheers!

    ReplyDelete