Usenet Abbreviations
There must be numerous lists of commonly-used Usenet abbreviations scattered around the Web, but they still occasionally cause confusion, so here is a list of those which I have encountered fairly regularly in this or other newsgroups.
| AIUI | As I Understand It |
| AFAICT | As Far As I Can Tell |
| AFAIK | As Far As I Know |
| BTW | By The Way |
| CFV | Call For Votes (e.g. on whether to create a suggested new Usenet group) |
| FUBAR | F****d Up Beyond All Recognition |
| FWIW | For What Its Worth |
| HTH | Hope This Helps |
| IIRC | If I Recall Correctly |
| IMHO | In My Humble Opinion |
| ISTM | It Seems To Me |
| ISTR | I Seem To Recall |
| LOL | Laugh Out Loud (curiously, the Dutch word 'lol' means 'fun') |
| Ob- | Obligatory, as in "ObBirding". Indicates an on-topic comment at the end of an otherwise off-topic post. |
| OP | Original Poster. (The poster of the first message in a thread.) |
| OT | Off-Topic - i.e. not strictly relevant to the newsgroup (though some people seem to think it means On-Topic!) |
| OTOH | On The Other Hand |
| RFD | Request For Discussion |
| RFI | Request For Information |
| ROFL | Roll On the Floor Laughing (or ROTFL; there are also other variations) |
| RTFM | Read The F**** Manual |
| SBC | a uk.r.b in-joke: the Senile Birders Club |
| TIA | Thanks In Advance |
| TTFN | Ta Ta For Now |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locater (= Internet address - the bit that is preceded by "http://") |
| VBG | Very Big Grin |
| YMMV | Your Mileage May Vary (= your experience may differ) |
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Last modified: 30/8/2011 |