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Q. Call me an old fogey, but I just got an iPhone and started texting. My kids are happy I can text with them now, but I feel like I need to learn a new language! They use all sorts of acronyms in their texts and I have no idea what they are saying. How can I figure out all of these acronyms without hiring a translator?
A. You are not alone. There are thousands of acronyms used for texting and chatting online, with new ones being created constantly. Some people say that they use acronyms to keep their texts short. Others admit to using them as codes to confuse parents. Either way, it can be frustrating when you are trying to read a text and you have no idea what the sender is trying to say.
Before I got married, I shared an apartment in New York with an editor of a fashion magazine. She came from Paris and marveled at all the catalogs we received in the mail. Using her best efforts to update my fashion style, she would mark the outfits in the clothing catalogs with acronyms like NWJ (No Way Jose) or IYBTIWMOT (If You Buy This I Will Move Out Today). As she interpreted her acronyms for me, we would giggle about the codes she invented (though I can’t remember her ever liking any outfits she saw in the catalogs).
I wish that interpreting acronyms was always fun, but more often than not it can be frustrating. To interpret acronyms in text messages, you could search each one on Google, but instead I suggest you download the Netlingo app from the iTunes App Store. This app will be a handy reference on your iPhone so you can search acronyms right from your phone. The app is called The List: Text and Chat Acronyms and is available for $0.99 at the iTunes App Store. The app is also available at the Android Market for $0.99 and is called LOL… Net Lingo Dictionary.
For those who don’t have a smartphone but still need to know what text acronyms are (for example, if you are Being a Parent De-tech-tive and checking out your kids’ text messages), check out Netlingo’s website: Netlingo Top 50. I like this site because the acronyms are listed by topic so you can search according to the following categories:
- Top 50 Acronyms Every Parent Needs to Know
- Top 50 MORE Acronyms Every Parent Needs to Know
- Top 50 Popular Text & Chat Acronyms
- Top 50 Popular Text Terms Used in Business
- Top 50 Newbie Terms Everyone Needs to Know
- Top 50 Tech Terms that are Now Common Expressions
- Top 50 Funniest Terms Used in the Online World
For example, CD9 means Code 9 Parents are in the room. Other codes for the same alert are P911 (Parent Alert), PIR (Parent In Room), PAL (Parents Are Listening) and PAW (Parents Are Watching).
Warning: don’t read the list of acronyms for parents right before you go to sleep at night or you will have nightmares. Some of the acronyms listed in the parent categories are shocking, crude, offensive and upsetting. I hope you never have to see some of the acronyms that are listed there. But if you do need to interpret these sorts of texts, you will be glad that you have this resource.
As for using acronyms, proceed with caution. If you try to text your kids or chat on Facebook using many of these acronyms, well, you will just look like you’re trying too hard to be cool. LOL is a universal acronym but most of the others should be saved for those whose thumbs are sore from texting.
Interestingly, very few acronyms are used on Twitter which has a restriction of 140 characters. Perhaps because tweets go out to the world, senders want to be certain they are understood?
Another warning: with most cell phone plans in the US, you are charged for both the texts you send and the texts you receive. Since you are new to texting, be sure to monitor the number of texts you send and receive to make sure you don’t go over the text limit on your plan and get hit with a nasty cell phone bill!
Bottom Line
There is no need to memorize all of the text acronyms out there. Instead, grab an app or consult a website like Netlingo to help you interpret your messages. Your kids will be impressed and/or shocked when they realize you understand what they are trying to say!
Have you ever been stumped by acronyms? How did you figure out what they meant? Let us know in the comments section below!
* Image by Gerry
** Image by idropkid
Was I the only naive parent who thought LOL meant “Lots of Love”? It took months before my son told me, somewhat sarcastically, that it means “Laugh Out Loud.” I guess I need that app!
Hi Kathy, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, LOL means Laugh Out Loud, BRB means Be Right Back, and OMG means Oh My Goodness or Oh My God, depending on the sender.
Now you will be well armed when reading texts from your son!
Thank you for your visit and your comment!
Hi Carolyn
Wow, I feel quite up with it all as I have guessed quite a few that I have read when my Gen Y niece messages me LOL
And when I am on Skype chat with my “younger” blogging buddies, they use them all the time! Sometimes I know what they are saying and sometimes I just guess by the tone of the conversation.
As with every generation, there is some speak that is generational and as soon as we figure it out, they will be using some other code so we don’t know what they are saying to their friends.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You’re very wise to point out that each generation has its own slang, I guess the language of texts is the slang for this generation.
True, you could guess what your younger blogging buddies mean by their acronyms, but now you have an easy way to see if your guesses are correct. I love Kathy’s example of LOL meaning Lots of Love to her!
Thanks for your visit, commment and tweet, Patricia! Always good to have you here at The Wonder of Tech. 🙂
Hi Carolyn
What a great subject for a blog post.
And here I am thinking that I’m the only person on the web who doesn’t know all these abbreviations. LOL
LOL is usually my limit but recently I came across HTH.
Took me ages to solve that one.
Just in case you don’t know, it stands for… no, I won’t spoil your fun.
Hi Keith, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you enjoyed the blog post, and you’re never alone at The Wonder of Tech. If you are wondering about tech, so are plenty of other readers!
HTH is another good acronym that I have used quite a bit in the past. That’s one that won’t keep you awake at night. 😉
I’m great with computers, even networks and most technology except mobile phones. I can’t get interested in them. I use predictive text on mine and don’t send texts often but run into two texts when I do! I’ve never used it to actually make a call. I did answer it one day! lol
I’m waiting for an email from ComLuv, not sure why. Something to do with a video. I’ll have to write the odd blog about technology, I did electronics at college and telecommunications. I worked in that sort of thing, once.
Hi Mike, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was into computers but not mobile phones. If you think of them as mini mobile computers you may like them a bit better.
My best phone for predictive text was my Palm Treo 750 running Windows Mobile 6.0. That phone could read my mind and often suggested entire phrases for me correctly. My iPhone usually can’t figure out which word I want.
I received my email from ComLuv but I haven’t watched the video yet. Let me know if you want me to forward the email to you.
Looking forward to your technology blog post!
Great post. While these are more for social context, there are even another weirder set for geeks… Something like a mysql cluster database administrator will kill one of the servers when it stops responding, STONITH – ‘Shoot the other node in the head’!
Hi iRewardChart, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I imagine techies have a great time coming up with acronyms, maybe even more fun than my New York roommate and I had. I hope that they can keep all of their acronyms straight.
Another great source of acronyms is the military. They come up with some great ones, though I’m trying to keep this blog G rated so I won’t share the ones I know. 😉
OMG, great post Carolyn. It seems like there is a new acronym that’s out every day and I have to use google more often than not to figure out what most of them are … smh
Hi Vitaly, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! It’s so true, everyone has a difficult time keeping up with the lingo on the internet. Smh, I had to look that one up! 😉
Thanks for your comment and your visit!
My wife has to laugh at her mother’s texts. She throws some acronyms in there Google can’t decipher. Must be old school texts, huh?
Davina Brewer is the best w/ the acronyms and yes, I have to go to Google to figure them out.
And of course there had to be an app for this, right?
Good to see you today.
Hi Bill, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Lol, either the acronyms are “old school” or completely made up like my New York roommate’s acronyms.
Yes, there is an app for this and for most other things by now. With 500,000 apps in the iTunes app store and about 200,000 more in the Android Market, just about all of the world’s problems should be solved soon, right?
Thanks for stopping by The Wonder of Tech and sticking around to leave a comment!
Yes I use the acronyms, @Bill. It’s to save typing be it in comments, texts and yes, Twitter. I don’t do it to confuse readers… I think I am using fairly common ones or figures of speech, but sometimes I like to toss out a Googleable stumper. 😉
@Carol I’ve shared that NetLingo list a few times, nice to see there is an app for that. Unlike the kids, I’m not trying to be stealthy, just fun and clever. And save myself some typing, as I do with my signature close.. FWIW.
Hi Davina, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech and thanks to Bill for inviting you to visit! It sounds as if you are fluent in the language of acronyms and help your readers become more proficient by challenging them! Thanks for sharing other reasons why people use acronyms besides being stealthy. 🙂
Love it! Being in a continous “text-training” course with a teen, I am usually only a step or three off the lingo. We are now “crash-course-training” said teen’s dad in the finer arts of texting. Thinking I need to get this app for him! lol!
Hi Carol, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Won’t your teen be impressed when you and his dad know exactly what he is saying in his texts. Make sure you don’t let your teen know that you are getting this app so you can see the surprised reaction! 😉
LOL this is an interesting post. Some people are just fond of texting using abbreviations because of the limited character allowed for a single message. I guess it started when we only have 160 character to send SMS. And as for chatting, using abbreviation is the fastest way to communicate your thoughts. Been there, done that. In all honesty though, I still use the whole word when constructing my sentence. Chances are, you will forget the correct spelling of a word and sometimes, it can lead to misunderstanding.
Hi Abey, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I agree, some people have a difficult time fitting their message into the 160 character limit of texts so they use acronyms to be able to write more. And maybe they use them because they’re fun?
I agree, if you use the entire word there will be less of a chance for misinterpretation of your message.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
WOW, Carolyn! I’m amazed at how many acronyms I don’t know — i.e., almost every single one you mention in this post. =P Your example of fashion acronyms makes me feel like newer acronyms are mostly created and used as an in-group/out-group identifier. You learn the special acronyms when you’re “part of them.”
I was going to mention exactly what you say at the end — that I rarely see acronyms in Twitter, where they would be so beneficial for the character limit. I wouldn’t even start using them because I want everyone to understand what I say without going to the trouble of looking acronyms up, especially knowing that most of the people I connect with are super busy people!
Thanks so much for having me think about this, Carolyn! =)
Hi Samantha, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I have been learning quite a few acronyms this week myself!
My New York roommate was newly in the US from Paris, so she wasn’t up on the fashion acronyms, she was just making them up to be funny. It worked! 😀
I agree about Twitter. Since most tweets go out to the world, the clearer they are, the better the message will be understood.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
These new-age acronyms can be very confusing even to people who know quite a bit about the current ones, because there are constantly new ones being invented all the time as you said.
Your story about the fashion editor is funny – she can probably use her codes to talk to others about someone’s outfit in code… I noticed a lot of editors seem to have their own little codes.
Great post and thanks for the helpful links.
Hi Gabriella,Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I agree, acronyms can be very confusing, that’s why I’m so glad to find helpful websites and apps that can interpret them for us!
I do believe my roommate was making up her acronyms, though maybe she did introduce them to the fashion industry in New York!
Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment!
Great blog topic.
MTFBWY
Hi Terry, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Lol, I had to look that one up!
Glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for your visit and your comment!
I’m lucky my kids are too young to have their own mobile phones, because the only acronym I know is LOL 🙂
Hi Jens, The funny thing about kids is that they get older. My kids used to be too young to text but that changed. Luckily, you have plenty of time to study your acronyms! 😉
I this getting thru?
Hi Jerry, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, your comment got through. 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
The old fogey in me tells me that I have far too many more important things to do with my life than descend into the world of text-speak. It’s amazing how George Orwell foresaw this all those years ago! Obviously it’s not working out quite how he wrote, but we’re heading for a re-working of our language!
Good post, thanks. Dan.
Hi Dan, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I don’t think it’s the “old fogey” in you as much as it is that you don’t have a need to interpret these acronyms. If everyone communicates to you with full words, no need for interpretation.
I am repeatedly amazed at how accurate Orwell’s predictions were. The cameras in London are very effective at identifying terrorists, but very intrusive from a Big Brother perspective. George Orwell, Big Brother Is Watching Your House
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
I had misunderstood the message of my friend because she used an abbreviation. I forgot the acronym already, but I was totally laughing when I knew the meaning of it. I said that I need to learn about those acronyms that she is using so that I can bump to others as well. 🙂
Hi Raverture, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, more and more people are using acronyms these days, it’s like learning a new language! I hope this blog post helps you to interpret your friends’ messages.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
I agree.. I often sneak on my kids cellphone and read his text message and I’m like in a different planet lol! Well I guess he knows that I’m investigating 🙂 But so far I’m proud that I can keep up with all this text slangs 🙂
Hi Jill, I agree, I think you need an interpreter if you’re going to read a kid’s text message. The good news is, interpreters are available, thanks to sites like Netlingo.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
Hi Carolyn, it’s Erin Jansen here, the woman who runs NetLingo 🙂 Great post! Thank you so much for helping people understand the wild and wonderful world of text lingo! BTW, many people think LOL is only Lots Of Love… watch my interview with Martha Stewart for a story about how this particular abbreviation causes a lot of confusion. You can see it here –> http://www.netlingo.com/press/martha.php
Best wishes for continued success with your blog and many thanks!
Hi Erin, Wow, that video is a hoot! You handled Martha beautifully and came across extremely poised on camera. That could not have been an easy interview. Well done.
You must have to work tirelessly to keep up with all of the acronyms, I don’t know how you do it, but you do it very well at NetLingo!
Thanks so much for your visit. We always enjoy having developers and authors visit The Wonder of Tech, especially ones with very entertaining videos! 🙂