I knew that and that's were the problem arose. "IMO" is an abbreviation of "In my opinion" and "pls" is NOT an abbreviation for "please", and this is what I used to think, til I found these:

http://www.abbreviations.com/IMHO
http://www.abbreviations.com/PLS

Now, in the linked thread (in OP), a person named "szboardstretcher", pointed me to a dictionary which claims pls is an abbreviation for PLEASE. And all this happened in that newbie's thread, what do you think that newbie is going to derive from this?

I couldn't find any citations which could differentiate between the text-speak and the abbreviations.
Plz Hlp, URGENT!

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If you interpret the LQ Rules that way I invite you to file a proper report using the report button.

2 members found this post helpful.

The basis of it all, and I tried to point that out by referring to http://www.albion.com/netiquette/, is that LQ is home to members from all ages and all around the globe. We need to understand each other well enough to be able to communicate and solve problems and to ensure that Jeremy decided on using the English language. Those who join must adapt, not the other way around. Of course there's several problems to start with like language barriers, members not lurking before posting, not being aware of netiquette and not reading the LQ Rules. Then there's a small group of one day flies that just don't care anyway. Without intention to be or become part of the LQ community they just leech answers and let their account die(). Either way, community-oriented, mature and worldly-wise as we are we should not need a dictionary for deciphering text and we certainly shouldn't need to nit over it.
Regardless of it all the overriding rule IMHO is related to our purpose: any unique question that gets answered strengthens LQ as the knowledge base we aim to be.


While this shouldn't turn out to be an opportunity to play the blame game in this particular case one member responded in a way that is unfortunate. The member following up that post should not have needed to do so as it provided an opportunity to derail the thread. If somebody repeatedly fails or refuses to acclimatize and peer moderation no longer works there's moderators who can and will take care of it.
Just use the report button.


TLA's, FLA's, other acronyms, abbreviations and chat language one encounters at LQ are often used often, elsewhere and listed in the Catb Jargon file, FOLDOC, IRC or other commonly known abbreviation sources. In ye aulde leetspeek ppl often used abbrevs like "plz" and anyone familiar with that, and the context in which things have been written, should be able to recognize it as "please". What distinguishes proper from improper use of acronyms is use of caps. For instance you'll find me using IIGC (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...2450/2006/4/5/, http://www.acronymfinder.com/Slang/IIGC.html) at times whereas "iigc" results in just meaningless garbage. And what apart from caps distinguishes .*speek from texting is origin: texting is supposed to be efficient in situations where both sides are accustomed to using it and sending a message is "expensive".
Not a hard and fast rule but if at first glance text looks like the effect of cerebral palsy* then it's probably not what we would want.


* Anyone viewing my comparison as an opportunity to claim I'm showing disrespect for actual victims of CP: think twice.

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"When in Rome, do as the Romans do" has been good advice since AD 387, is re-stated in Netiquette Rule 3 and could here be "When in LQ, do as the LQers do".

It's pragmatic and courteous communication, using language that is likely to be understood by the intended readership.

tl;dr

EDIT: just for the lulz, how about posting in the wilder chans in LQ-speak?

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Wozzat mean? Joking apart, I genuinely do not know and could not find an explanation online. Related to nit-picking?

You got that right and it wasn't even proper English :-]

IMNSHO WTF might be preferable to spelling it out, DEA?

I have no clue what half of that means. So I am moving on ;-)

"In My Not So Humble Opinion" "Where is The Fire" might be preferable to spelling it out, "Drunk Each Afternoon". Yeah, right...

One reason I don't like texting. If I had to read that all the time I would really need to be Drunk each afternoon, lol... (lol=licking old lamas???)

No, that's not texting. "IMNSHO" is a valid take on the well-known FLA (Five Letter Acronym) and "WTF" is a valid TLA. AFAIK.

Apologies to all senior members, moderators, 5k club members and other members posting serious discussion in this thread, because this post is not serious at all, it's intended to be humourous. I hope I'm not breaking LQ rules, and I don't want to be disrespecful to anybody. But...

I use the wtf command all the time.

Seriously! It's part of bsd-games-2.13 in my Slackware box.

Or,

Sometimes is not very smart:

And sometimes it is:

So that's it. Please don't kill me.

PS: If I've offended someone or broken LQ rules, moderators please go ahead and remove this silly post.

3 members found this post helpful.

@Diantre

I don't see how your post can possibly be offensive.

Anyway:

Personally, the only internet abbreviations/acronyms I tend to use are those that you'll find on plenty of forums/message boards, e.g. IMO, IIRC, AFAIK, etc. The occasional LOL slips in, too.

I get annoyed with text-speak, too, though; it gets annoying when ppl tlk like dis as if dey dont hav time 2 type out thr wrds.

My first guess is "does everyone agree?".

I would really like to know if the OP actually filed the report

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