Drew G. Jackson actually originally it's "For your interest", but "for your information" is okay as well... (which probably was a retronym at first but by now seems to have more or less taken over...)
Most German acronyms are for boring bureaucratic things. Take BAFöG, for example (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz = federal law for the funding of higher education = student finance) 😜
You did very well. As a fellow gamer, I knew you'd know most of 'em. :-) Someone else called out FYI, but I think you may have gotten IMHO wrong as well (IMHO! Ha!). Back when many of these were popularized on-line (I'm that old... back in USENET and BBS days), IMHO meant In My Humble Opinion, not In My Honest Opinion as you stated here. That variation makes more sense that the "Honest" one (as you pointed out... was the first IMO a lie?). Humble is telling the recipient that you aren't trying to be a know-it-all or correct them, but just offering a humble opinion.
If you're that old, do you remember Eternal September and the Assholes On Line? That was the first stage of the end of the internet as anything truly underground, to me anyway. Then there was "The Meow Wars," started by a bunch of bored space cadets from Harvard. That was actually a pretty clever troll attempt, but alt.tasteless vs. rec.pets.cats was just over the line, man. It totally squicked me.
PageMonster or you are just reading them wrong. I think it's a little bit like saying Germans are rude for being blunt, or saying they are honest for being blunt... Two different ways to interpet the same happening.
@@ChrisPage68 IMHO precedes a grand generalization that is way beyond your qualifications to make, as a preemptive defense to a likely personal attack on your overblown opinion of yourself.
Me too, but ironically enough I know many foreigners who barely know English at all (and some who know NONE at all)...and still regularly use English slang. OMG and LOL being the biggest. I live in Russia and its quite common for people to use such English abbreviations, even if they don't know English at all. But they DO know what those mean. But most here who use it do know at least some English. WTF is another common one, too.
Back when I was in 5th or 6th grade, when some of the "cool" kids in my class discovered some internet acronyms, including LOL, but since they didn't understand English but knew it meant something like laughing, they said it stood for "Lachen ohne Laute" ("Laughing without noise") which is way more accurate than laughing out loud
Before the modern corporate owned social media Internet, yes. But FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) and RFC's (Request For Comments) especially were the foundation of the free Internet before the corporates and political SJW scum decided to steal it.
It's 'humble'. Really. Because it takes the edge off correcting someone or stating an opinion- unless you're being sarcastic and not humble at all, which also happens.
Mind, I shouldn't be too prescriptive. Ultimately a set of initials represent whatever words the writer has chosen. But if that set have a generally accepted meaning, the writer can't complain if readers take it that they intend that generally accepted meaning. So the argument isn't that they "mean" this or that, rather that "this set of initials are generally accepted to represent" this or that. I may have time on my commute to over-think things.
Most of those are Abbreviations not Acronyms. An acronym has to ne pronounceable as a syllable or word. If you have to say the letters it is an abbreviation.
The "LOL" bit was hilarious. I actually did laugh out loud because I've seen people actually type this but with a complete look of stupor on their face. You're the best!
I wanted to learn a German accent for my puppet parodies channel and that's how I found you.Thank you, thank you. I remember that you had a baby. Hope all is well with your family. My older daughter is a software developer for General Motors here in Detroit. 😃
My friend was texting a friend in Germany and would often respond "uh huh" and the next time they met in person the German responded by saying "uh huh" with a German pronunciation haha it took a bit to figure out the context
Uh huh as in questioning? Or pronounced like Aha as in "I understand as a noise"? I just cant imagine someone say uh huh with a complete german pronounciation and I'm from germany
Die Abkürzung „HAND“ für "Have a nice day" verwendet man im Englischen so gut wie nie. Zumindest wusste ich gar nicht, dass diese Abk. sogar existiert. Und das obwohl ich englischer Muttersprachler bin. Noch was dazu, "FYI" steht normalerweise für "For your information", "LRL" hab ich nie von jemandem verwendet gesehen. Das gilt auch für "AFAP", aber ich muss zugeben, dass das sich von allein lustig anhört.
Hey Trixie, thank you so much for this video. Love your comedic sensibilities for censoring sounds. This made me laugh, and I really appreciated that today.
:-) I'm from New York, and *I* had a few head-scratching moments with the list. Pretty much, I think ACRONYMS and TLAs all depend on the exposure you had to them. BTW (By The Way), TLA is a Three Letter Acronym for ...Three Letter Acronym .
Yikes, I wonder which would make a shorter list. The ones I haven't seen before or the ones I have seen before? There were a lot here that were new to me... (But personally I tend to stick with writing out full sentences. I rarely throw out any abbreviations myself.) "SMH" is an odd one for me, because for a long time I always thought that it was supposed to mean "so much hate" and never really saw any indication in the context I saw people using it in that it could be anything else. Even after learning a few years ago that it's actually "shake my head" I still tend to read it as "so much hate" whenever I see it. Feels more natural for the way people online tend to behave.
Slang in any language is hard for learners to pick up. I'm learning Korean right now and they have a lot of internet slang that I've been trying to learn.
Hey Trixie, plz allow me to FTFY: FYI: for your information IMHO: in my humble opinion Also, you should add: IANAL: I am not a lawyer Ciao, bella! TTFN!
I'm sure someone else down below in the comments has already pointed this out, but just in case, I'll be that guy. Most of those were *NOT* acronyms. Technically, an acronym has to spell out a pronounceable word. If they don't, then they're INITIALISMS. Yes, I know, most people think they're the same thing, but the dictionary says differently. Sorry.
@@slimboyfat9409 I think you missed the point so I'll explain it again. I was confused too by the OP (original post) but I looked up the definition of initialism and then it made sense. Both acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations of phrases. They spell the first letter of each word in the phrase. The difference is the pronunciation. Acronyms such as lol are pronounced 'loll.' Initialisms like omg are sounded out letter by letter, 'oh em gee'. @GadgetPanda I think using bold words might be a trigger for people like these who might think you're arrogant.
TheGadgetPanda Sonar Laser Scuba Now you think these things are words but once they were gibberish but they are initialisms from phrases. Snafu Fubar Are these words or initialisms? They seem like words because they contain vowels in their middles as opposed to idk smh iirc ttyl brb Are all of the above initialisms or acronyms? They are both . Acronym is as acceptable for NATO,NASA,Noraid as it is for EU,NAFTA or SEATO. Is NAFTA a word or an initialism or an acronym? Or is it all three?
@@slimboyfat9409 This passage is from Merriam Webster: Some people feel strongly that acronym should only be used for terms like NATO, which is pronounced as a single word, and that initialism should be used if the individual letters are all pronounced distinctly, as with FBI. Our research shows that acronym is commonly used to refer to both types of abbreviations. So the OP is one of those people who feel strongly that acronyms and initialisms should be distinguished, and you are someone who uses them interchangeably.
@Martin: A Newb is somebody who is simply new. They can learn. A Noob is somebody who can't or won't learn. If you treat a Newb with respect and patience, you might be able to save them from becoming a Noob, and earn a new friend in the bargain.
It's always trickier when they are out of context too normally when you run across one that you don't know off the top of your head you have context clues to try and figure out what it's likely to be.
Some of these come from days of old of BBSs and dialups, and some come from the days of early cell phone texting where you had to punch numeric keys multiple times to get the correct letter. Hence, any letter left out saved you several key punches.
We have been using acronyms to communicate since the telegraph era, which allowed us to communicate messages in Morse Code much faster. Even medieval Spanish and Classical Latin abbreviated a lot of words in writing. It's one of the reasons why the Ñ exists. Originally it was written as a double N or NN, but the one was placed on top of the other to make more room on the page and over time the top N transformed into the modern tilde.
Hi Trixi, so much adoration. FYI (interest not information) I use ASAP in my work emails all the time as well. I think it is pre-internet...also, I tend to read it as a word in itself (ie. a-sap -- um...okay not sure how to write a long "a" phonetically" but think 'a' as in 'face' sap...) so....yeah...nm...leaving now. If yr ever in western Canada, say hi 😅
One you would see more in advice areas, that I tend to you use most, is YMMV which means your mileage may vary. For those who aren't native English speakers, miles are a measure of distance in America. Mileage means roughly about how many miles the car could go under different circumstances. If you hear or see a vehicle advertisement talk about gas mileage, it means how many miles you are likely to go between refueling. Of course everyone drives a bit differently, so your mileage may vary. This is useful in advice forums to talk about your experiences, if you have firsthand experience, to give them a sense of what to expect. It is like saying this was my experience, yours could still be different.
A lot of these were used for chatrooms, but those have mostly been done away with. Are there even chatrooms at all anymore? Gosh they were everywhere around 2000/2005 and really busy.
SMD = surface mount device An electronic component that solders to pads on the circuit instead of having pins or wires that go through holes in the circuit board and solder to the underside
Some people use acronymsbin situations where they would not say the words. For instance, I heard a judge refer to a snafu that had occurred in court, but I am pretty sure he would not have said the words that acronym represents in court
These acronyms didn't start because of the internet and chat rooms, they started when early cell phone texting began. One reason was there was a limited amount of characters you could send, and another was that it was an absolute pain to spell out entire words using the numeric keyboards on those old devices. Using actual letters as words actually goes all the way back to telegram and telegraphs where you were charged by the length of message.
I'm glad you're using brighter backgrounds. That brick wall with a hole in it was gloomy. By the way (BTW?), FYI has been used for a long time in offices and so on. I think it was mentioned by Kurt Vonnegut in 'The Sirens of Titan' more than 50 years ago now.
I can relate to this - acronyms stumble me almost every time. There a few most frequently used ones in our company: AFAIK and variants (AFAICS, AFAICT), OTOH (had to google that one), TIA (had to google that one), FTR (I think I had to google that one too), AFK (had no idea what it meant) and IMO (which sometimes expands to "you're a moron for not knowing that"). And I'll admit right here there was a time when I had to google LOL. Oh my goodness. Why, people, why? Good video, Trixi.
Its kinda funny that you became so "famous" just by teaching your own language to others. I just found your channel today and really enjoy your videos ^^ Es ist irgendwie witzig, dass du so "berühmt" wurdest, indem du anderen einfach nur deine eigene Sprache beibringst. Hab deinen Kanal heute erst gefunden, aber mag deine Videos jetzt schon sehr. Und ja ich bin Deustch, fänds aber bei einer Kommentarsektiom, die zu über 50% aus nicht-deutschen besteht jetzt 'n bisschen doof, den Kommentar nur auf deustch zu schreiben.
Haha Ich lach mich Schlapp. Ich hoffe du liest das ich wollte dir danken und zwar für dein Video von 06.08.2012 als Trixiberry und zwar das Video ,,Metrum eines Gedichts erkennen: Jambus, Trochäus, Anapäst oder Daktylus?,, Ich hätte nie Gedacht das du das bist.Da fehlen mir etwas die Worte was ich sagen will du machst tolle Videos und nochmal danke für die Erklärung ich wette das hörst du nicht von einem Anfängerrapper :'D Vielen Dank nochmal
I thought it might be a bit prudent to interlude for a second here, because not all of these are acronyms, per se. An acronym is specifically the term used when the first letters of a 'full form' create a pronounceable word. Eg: Lol, Lmao, etc. However, one cannot call such contractions as 'fyi,' 'gtfo,' etc. as acronyms because they are pronounced as separate letters. These contractions are more properly referred to as 'initialism.' Though a technical distinction that seldom makes its way into daily conversation, I thought it'd be right to point it out here since it _is_ an educational point and this is an _educational_ channel, albeit not for English, and the point still stands. Thank you for reading the comment, and great job on the episode, as always!
Tbh i think you cannot ask „do germans understand that“ because imo it’s not related to your native language at all. It’s more about how often you face these acronyms. Wether you are German , English or whatever else. Still interesting video :) keep it on !
Yes, but some of these acronyms have equivalents in German - if you don't use international pages a lot, you might read "m.M.n." (meiner Meinung nach) more often than "imo" (in my opinion). Some acronyms are just more international than others. Also, I experienced that the Englisch speaking world uses a LOT more acronyms than the Germans.
@@annkathrinhanamond2982 It seems like we do it a bit more ergonomically too. lower-case full stop upper case full stop lower case full stop m.M.n. doesn't exactly roll off the fingertips.
it's even worse. the question in the video is "do germans know common english internet acronyms" and the title says "ENGLISH INTERNET SLANG Germans Don't Get" and i guess we found out if "germans" know them or not by testing if trixie knows them or not.. so i guess trixie is "the germans".. srsly the amount of generalization is astounding... the whole of germany in one single youtuber... amazing...
I didn't know all of them, either, FWIW. The older one mentioned in the comments was YMMV but I don't see that anymore. It was the government sticker on new cars that listed the fuel mileage for a car and was, "Your Mileage May Vary" (according to the percentage of city driving to suburban driving, etc.) Someone mentioned ATM, which is most often the cash machine, but in IT terms, I always think of Asynchronous Transfer Mode which is a network connection to provide a better guaranteed throughput than Ethernet collisions. When I read French commenters (on French sites), I have to search my mind for their abbreviations for common words like peut-être or s'il te plaît. Since Trixie knows French, I'm sure that she acquired a bunch of those, too.
As an American, I know all the acronyms you presented but I only use about one-third. They are fine but I don't need to make the effort to put in short-cuts everywhere I can (I would also like to think I am intelligent enough not to resort to curse words as place-holders for what I am trying to say). I am not sure how I feel though about English dominating the acronyms. I think it would be interesting and educational to have other cultures contribute. Come on Germany you have so many great expressions that say so much - put some acronyms out there :-)
Pretty much all of the ones you didn't know I didn't know either as a native English speaker (although SMH is used a lot) and people don't really use them anymore as far as I know, so I think your understanding of internet acronyms is actually really good!
Most all of these acronyms were originally used in cell phone messaging which was limited to 160 characters per message and was referred to as *"text speak" or "SMS language"* Unfortunately it has been unnecessarily carried over onto the internet manly by people who either can't spell or can't take the time to write out the full words.
I'm one of those grown adults who still use chatrooms to be social. It makes me really sad and irritated when I see other grown adults speaking like "how are u". The lack of a "?" after a question is also really common which just passive-aggressively not makes me want to answer.
I would say, these acronyms are not that common in normal writing or chatting except maybe afk and lol and I don't understand why to use them. On the other hand when you are gaming for example and only have limited time to spend on your chat, such abbreviations get pretty use full. But I also think, that what acronyms are used are very depended on the game or chatroom your are in.
Actually, it gets better: a Lot of the abriviations, acronyms, and initialisms used in txt and chatrooms etc? Yeah, quite a few of them first showed up (at least in a way there is record of) in Telegraph Messages. Most dropped out of use along with the telegraph as well, admittedly. They're just the easiest way to reduce the number of characters needed while minimising data loss. Conversational file compression, as it were.
ken winston No need to be ashamed or apologetic about it. Just because it also has another slang meaning you don't have to stop using it in its normal meaning. Context and emphasis usually make unambiguously clear how you meant it.
I use LOL as an indicator as to whether something I say is a joke or if I thought something was funny. This ensures that when a text is written, the intent is not misconstrued as being rude (in the case of a comment which could be taken as an insult) or being serious (such as when a comment is meant to be sarcastic and not serious). The use of LOL, no longer means that someone is actually laughing, although it could, but rather that something is designated as funny. LMAO on the other hand, is a stronger form of LOL and thus most likely means someone is actually laughing out loud.
Thanks (thx) Trixi ... many of those look like gamer "chat shorthand". I'm online all the time (no boards or games) and see a third or fewer of your examples. That was fun ... it's good to see you again ;-)
Hi Trixi, do you know the Jargon File? And Eric, does he know at least some of its entries? You're gonna like it, especially the older version: www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg262.txt . And it teaches *a lot* about the history of IT and "hacker subculture".
I’m a native English speaker from the US and I’ll be real honest, I figured most of them out but I didn’t know half these were a thing so you did really really well
Did you notice a sign online saying "Dead Acronym Storage"? Apparently some members of my generation (Generation X) did. TBH implies that, up to this point, the speaker hasn't been. And that's just one of the many problems these things indicate.
Well in some contexts it can really mean that effectively being shorthand for "Up till now I was politely trying to save your feelings but now you are about to get it"
A lot of these predate the internet and even dialup BBS's, some came about due to the per letter charge for telegrams and other message systems, there are even examples of some of these used by early users of various postal services and they come up in dairies from even earlier times.
Hey Trixie, Love all of your videos; however, I think that your hubby was definitely a little hard on you with regard to these acronyms. Most of them aren't commonly used in conversation with regular English speakers (unless he was also grabbing them from different aspects other than 'social'...per se). Here are some of the ones that (at least I find) are the most commonly used: TBH, WTF, LOL, IMO, SMH, TL;DR, DM (direct message), JSYK (just so you know), TBT (throwback Thursday), OMW (on my way), RT (retweet), IRL, NSFW (not safe for work), FML (though it seems to be getting less popular), BRB, BAE (commonly used as a short form for babe, but it also stands for before anything else), HIFW (how I feel/felt when), and this little treat: OTL (not actually an acronym, but rather a depiction of a man kneeling ("O" is the head, "T" is the back and arms, and "L" is the bent legs). (However the last one really isn't commonly used, it's just fun.) Also, G2G has sort of fallen out of use at least here anyways; kids still use it though. All in all, I think that Germans have a pretty good grasp of English internet slan. Great job! Es tut mir leid, ich weiß, dass mein Kommentar sehr lang ist, aber diese Dinge sind sehr interessant und es gibt viel zu besprechen.
Trixi, just a couple of comments. Firstly, FYI, FYI stands for, " for your information" (not "for your interest" - at least I've never heard it used that way) Secondly, many of the examples you gave are initialisms, not acronyms. The difference is that that in order to qualify as an acronym, an abbreviation must form a word. The acronym HAND that you mentioned would generally qualify as an acronym. Initialisms on the other hand do not spell out words and cannot be said as a word. FYI is a perfect example, as you can't say the letters F, Y and I as one word. You have to say "F," "Y" and "I" individually to represent "for your information." Anyway, just FYI. :)
@@slimboyfat9409 What are you babbling about? Your comment makes no sense AND isn't funny. And "OCD" is an initialism by the way, not an acronym, so your reading comprehension sucks too. You strike me as the type of dude who cracks dumb jokes at parties trying to seem funny to girls, but they kind of just look at one another after you say something, each thinking to themselves what a hopeless dork you are and hoping you'll walk away soon. Good luck dude.
American, from that transitional generation who grew up without the net, and still constantly looking these things up to be sure what they mean. Your show is fun and informative, thank you.
IMHO - can also be In My Humble Opinion. It primary meaning cracks me up for same reason you pointed out. Like TBH which implies either the person lies often, or the person is about to lie, but really wants you to believe them anyway. STFU - can also be Search The F**king Archives. Used to imply the poster is utterly lazy, entitled or attention seeking so quit trying to waste everyone's time. IMHO, LRL came about because LOL became so cliche. It's like OMG or FYI. Played out. FYI, if I wrote it to you then it's information I was clearly intending to pass on to you.
FYI, FYI is “For Your Information”.
Oh oh! Sorry!
@@DontTrustTheRabbit SRY. ❤️
And also this one predates the internet by a very long time... at least 100 years.
Drew G. Jackson
actually originally it's "For your interest", but "for your information" is okay as well... (which probably was a retronym at first but by now seems to have more or less taken over...)
@@bur1t0 And TGIF predates the internet by decades, too.
I'd be really interested in German acronyms, could you do a video about that 😁
They need them for their ten syllable words.
Most German acronyms are for boring bureaucratic things. Take BAFöG, for example (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz = federal law for the funding of higher education = student finance) 😜
Just Google: die fantastischen 4 - "mfg" 😂
@@antjeshahmuradov8039 And then google every single acronym in "mfg" :D
Lol
I have always thought that LMAO is Bavarian and stands for "Leck's mi am Oarsch".
xD
Gfoitt mir eintlich noch a wenga bessa! 😉
Bwa hahahaha!!! Good one, sir.
Definitiv XD
hahahaha🔵⚪🔵⚪🔵⚪
You did very well. As a fellow gamer, I knew you'd know most of 'em. :-)
Someone else called out FYI, but I think you may have gotten IMHO wrong as well (IMHO! Ha!). Back when many of these were popularized on-line (I'm that old... back in USENET and BBS days), IMHO meant In My Humble Opinion, not In My Honest Opinion as you stated here.
That variation makes more sense that the "Honest" one (as you pointed out... was the first IMO a lie?). Humble is telling the recipient that you aren't trying to be a know-it-all or correct them, but just offering a humble opinion.
The page I used to recheck the meanings lists both "humble" and "honest". But thanks for pointing it out! "Humble" is more common, I guess.
When they say they're being humble, they're often being the opposite in my experience.
If you're that old, do you remember Eternal September and the Assholes On Line? That was the first stage of the end of the internet as anything truly underground, to me anyway. Then there was "The Meow Wars," started by a bunch of bored space cadets from Harvard. That was actually a pretty clever troll attempt, but alt.tasteless vs. rec.pets.cats was just over the line, man. It totally squicked me.
PageMonster
or you are just reading them wrong.
I think it's a little bit like saying Germans are rude for being blunt, or saying they are honest for being blunt... Two different ways to interpet the same happening.
@@ChrisPage68 IMHO precedes a grand generalization that is way beyond your qualifications to make, as a preemptive defense to a likely personal attack on your overblown opinion of yourself.
I am a native English speaker. In fact I only am fluent in English.
You know all the ones I know, in fact more than the ones I do.
I'm English too (UK) But I am also learning german so I can kinda understand what trixie says (when she's speaking german)
I've literally Never seen someone use HAND
I'm American and I still have trouble with slang
Me too, but ironically enough I know many foreigners who barely know English at all (and some who know NONE at all)...and still regularly use English slang. OMG and LOL being the biggest. I live in Russia and its quite common for people to use such English abbreviations, even if they don't know English at all. But they DO know what those mean. But most here who use it do know at least some English. WTF is another common one, too.
@Martin *to
Not Me you are old. I have the same problem with Swedish slang
Back when I was in 5th or 6th grade, when some of the "cool" kids in my class discovered some internet acronyms, including LOL, but since they didn't understand English but knew it meant something like laughing, they said it stood for "Lachen ohne Laute" ("Laughing without noise") which is way more accurate than laughing out loud
LMAO! 😂😂😂 great video :P FAQ isn’t really an “internet” acronym, it just means Frequently Asked Question. People had FAQs before the Internet 😂😂😂
Before the modern corporate owned social media Internet, yes. But FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) and RFC's (Request For Comments) especially were the foundation of the free Internet before the corporates and political SJW scum decided to steal it.
"In My Honest Opinion."
Humble* "In My _Humble_ Opinion."
It's honest. At least, by like 90% of the internet that I've seen.
It's 'humble'. Really. Because it takes the edge off correcting someone or stating an opinion- unless you're being sarcastic and not humble at all, which also happens.
It's humble
Mind, I shouldn't be too prescriptive. Ultimately a set of initials represent whatever words the writer has chosen. But if that set have a generally accepted meaning, the writer can't complain if readers take it that they intend that generally accepted meaning.
So the argument isn't that they "mean" this or that, rather that "this set of initials are generally accepted to represent" this or that.
I may have time on my commute to over-think things.
Can be either.
DTTR: Don‘t trust the rabbit😉😂❤️
As a native English speaker and internet denizen, I pretty much missed the ones you missed. I feel like some of those were digging pretty deep.
The AFK "GAMER GIRLFRIEND" moment fucked me up, lol
Most of those are Abbreviations not Acronyms. An acronym has to ne pronounceable as a syllable or word. If you have to say the letters it is an abbreviation.
The "LOL" bit was hilarious. I actually did laugh out loud because I've seen people actually type this but with a complete look of stupor on their face. You're the best!
Me personally, I hate using acronyms.
Same. Writing it out in full saves you embarrassment of using an acronym incorrectly XD
me 2
Same, but it does force me to write REALLY long texts!
You are acronym acrimonious?
I wanted to learn a German accent for my puppet parodies channel and that's how I found you.Thank you, thank you. I remember that you had a baby. Hope all is well with your family. My older daughter is a software developer for General Motors here in Detroit. 😃
My friend was texting a friend in Germany and would often respond "uh huh" and the next time they met in person the German responded by saying "uh huh" with a German pronunciation haha it took a bit to figure out the context
Uh huh as in questioning? Or pronounced like Aha as in "I understand as a noise"?
I just cant imagine someone say uh huh with a complete german pronounciation and I'm from germany
@@betk8811 Uh huh as in I understand. Haha but the German person said OOO HOOO
@@delaformosa oooh I forgot yea for understanding we either use an aha or ohoo which sounds and is more used for like a surprised aha
Just watched your youtube video you are so cute haha!
I think FYI can also mean "For Your Information".
I've not seen most of these, as a British native!
knowledge share it just means he doesnt spend all that much time on the internet, probably
Die Abkürzung „HAND“ für "Have a nice day" verwendet man im Englischen so gut wie nie. Zumindest wusste ich gar nicht, dass diese Abk. sogar existiert. Und das obwohl ich englischer Muttersprachler bin. Noch was dazu, "FYI" steht normalerweise für "For your information", "LRL" hab ich nie von jemandem verwendet gesehen. Das gilt auch für "AFAP", aber ich muss zugeben, dass das sich von allein lustig anhört.
Als 19 Jähriger muss ich einfach sagen: "Immer diese Jugend von heute, kein Respekt vor ordentlicher Sprache" (Bitte mit Retrogandalf stimme lesen)
Like dafür dass du Bezug zum Retrogandalf genommen hast.
Traurig genug das es wie Sarkasmus wirkt.
Technically, 'sry' and 'plz' are abbreviations, not acronyms.
Hey Trixie, thank you so much for this video. Love your comedic sensibilities for censoring sounds. This made me laugh, and I really appreciated that today.
OFC - of course.
IMHO - also means in my humble opinion .
Never forget just how amazing you are. I always enjoy your videos. Keep up the great work!
:-) I'm from New York, and *I* had a few head-scratching moments with the list. Pretty much, I think ACRONYMS and TLAs all depend on the exposure you had to them.
BTW (By The Way), TLA is a Three Letter Acronym for ...Three Letter Acronym .
Yikes, I wonder which would make a shorter list. The ones I haven't seen before or the ones I have seen before? There were a lot here that were new to me... (But personally I tend to stick with writing out full sentences. I rarely throw out any abbreviations myself.)
"SMH" is an odd one for me, because for a long time I always thought that it was supposed to mean "so much hate" and never really saw any indication in the context I saw people using it in that it could be anything else. Even after learning a few years ago that it's actually "shake my head" I still tend to read it as "so much hate" whenever I see it. Feels more natural for the way people online tend to behave.
When I see SMH, "So Much Hate" pops into my mind, because it fits, more often than not.
Trixi, i still think that your the sweetest thing on the internet.
As a native American English speaker, I was helped by the meanings you shared for these mysterious acronyms. Thank you!
Slang in any language is hard for learners to pick up. I'm learning Korean right now and they have a lot of internet slang that I've been trying to learn.
I was under the impression imho was in my humble opinion.
Hey Trixie, plz allow me to FTFY:
FYI: for your information
IMHO: in my humble opinion
Also, you should add:
IANAL: I am not a lawyer
Ciao, bella! TTFN!
I'm sure someone else down below in the comments has already pointed this out, but just in case, I'll be that guy. Most of those were *NOT* acronyms. Technically, an acronym has to spell out a pronounceable word. If they don't, then they're INITIALISMS. Yes, I know, most people think they're the same thing, but the dictionary says differently. Sorry.
I was wondering if somebody was going to point out that little understood point.
She even went out of her way to call acronym the correct term >:(
@@slimboyfat9409 I think you missed the point so I'll explain it again. I was confused too by the OP (original post) but I looked up the definition of initialism and then it made sense. Both acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations of phrases. They spell the first letter of each word in the phrase. The difference is the pronunciation. Acronyms such as lol are pronounced 'loll.' Initialisms like omg are sounded out letter by letter, 'oh em gee'.
@GadgetPanda I think using bold words might be a trigger for people like these who might think you're arrogant.
TheGadgetPanda
Sonar
Laser
Scuba
Now you think these things are words but once they were gibberish but they are initialisms from phrases.
Snafu
Fubar
Are these words or initialisms? They seem like words because they contain vowels in their middles as opposed to
idk
smh
iirc
ttyl
brb
Are all of the above initialisms or acronyms?
They are both .
Acronym is as acceptable for NATO,NASA,Noraid as it is for EU,NAFTA or SEATO.
Is NAFTA a word or an initialism or an acronym?
Or is it all three?
@@slimboyfat9409 This passage is from Merriam Webster:
Some people feel strongly that acronym should only be used for terms like NATO, which is pronounced as a single word, and that initialism should be used if the individual letters are all pronounced distinctly, as with FBI. Our research shows that acronym is commonly used to refer to both types of abbreviations.
So the OP is one of those people who feel strongly that acronyms and initialisms should be distinguished, and you are someone who uses them interchangeably.
One of my personal favorites is RTFM, read the f* manual.
I prefer Read The Friendly Manual because I don't like that other word.
PEBKAC, Problem exists between keyboard and chair.
@Martin: A Newb is somebody who is simply new. They can learn.
A Noob is somebody who can't or won't learn.
If you treat a Newb with respect and patience, you might be able to save them from becoming a Noob, and earn a new friend in the bargain.
Related to that is the Ph.D button. Push here, dummy.
also FUBAR but that's from the military
As a native English speaker, I got about 2/3rds as well.
It's always trickier when they are out of context too normally when you run across one that you don't know off the top of your head you have context clues to try and figure out what it's likely to be.
"FYI, I know that 'FYI' stands for 'For Your Interest.'"
"Information," not "Interest." "For Your Information."
You missed the acronym from the Tinder generation: DTF? (down to f**k?)
Yeah, that one was used before smartphones were even introduced.
Some of these come from days of old of BBSs and dialups, and some come from the days of early cell phone texting where you had to punch numeric keys multiple times to get the correct letter. Hence, any letter left out saved you several key punches.
We have been using acronyms to communicate since the telegraph era, which allowed us to communicate messages in Morse Code much faster. Even medieval Spanish and Classical Latin abbreviated a lot of words in writing. It's one of the reasons why the Ñ exists. Originally it was written as a double N or NN, but the one was placed on top of the other to make more room on the page and over time the top N transformed into the modern tilde.
Hi Trixi, so much adoration. FYI (interest not information) I use ASAP in my work emails all the time as well. I think it is pre-internet...also, I tend to read it as a word in itself (ie. a-sap -- um...okay not sure how to write a long "a" phonetically" but think 'a' as in 'face' sap...) so....yeah...nm...leaving now. If yr ever in western Canada, say hi 😅
Hi Trixi, clever video. LMFAO. LOL, JK. YOLO. TTFN. BDBDBD. (Okay, that last one was just the noise that the robot made on Buck Rogers.) Ciao!
TTFN is from Tigger.
5:51 für mich (komm aus Deutschland) klingt des wie ein Radiosender😂😂
Can you do a video on what Dutch and Low German sounds to you?
When you are unable to understand "internet lingo", is that a case of "pebcak" (problem exists between chair and keyboard)?
Reminds me of a story where there was PEBCAK, & the helpdesk guy got them to edit win.ini to add the line USER=ID10T at the bottom.
One you would see more in advice areas, that I tend to you use most, is YMMV which means your mileage may vary. For those who aren't native English speakers, miles are a measure of distance in America. Mileage means roughly about how many miles the car could go under different circumstances. If you hear or see a vehicle advertisement talk about gas mileage, it means how many miles you are likely to go between refueling. Of course everyone drives a bit differently, so your mileage may vary. This is useful in advice forums to talk about your experiences, if you have firsthand experience, to give them a sense of what to expect. It is like saying this was my experience, yours could still be different.
A lot of these were used for chatrooms, but those have mostly been done away with. Are there even chatrooms at all anymore? Gosh they were everywhere around 2000/2005 and really busy.
Hell, you knew more than I did, and I'm an American from California.
IMNSHO, IMHO means "in my humble opinion".
SMD = surface mount device
An electronic component that solders to pads on the circuit instead of having pins or wires that go through holes in the circuit board and solder to the underside
Some people use acronymsbin situations where they would not say the words. For instance, I heard a judge refer to a snafu that had occurred in court, but I am pretty sure he would not have said the words that acronym represents in court
These acronyms didn't start because of the internet and chat rooms, they started when early cell phone texting began. One reason was there was a limited amount of characters you could send, and another was that it was an absolute pain to spell out entire words using the numeric keyboards on those old devices. Using actual letters as words actually goes all the way back to telegram and telegraphs where you were charged by the length of message.
I'm glad you're using brighter backgrounds. That brick wall with a hole in it was gloomy. By the way (BTW?), FYI has been used for a long time in offices and so on. I think it was mentioned by Kurt Vonnegut in 'The Sirens of Titan' more than 50 years ago now.
I can relate to this - acronyms stumble me almost every time. There a few most frequently used ones in our company: AFAIK and variants (AFAICS, AFAICT), OTOH (had to google that one), TIA (had to google that one), FTR (I think I had to google that one too), AFK (had no idea what it meant) and IMO (which sometimes expands to "you're a moron for not knowing that"). And I'll admit right here there was a time when I had to google LOL. Oh my goodness. Why, people, why? Good video, Trixi.
Its kinda funny that you became so "famous" just by teaching your own language to others. I just found your channel today and really enjoy your videos ^^
Es ist irgendwie witzig, dass du so "berühmt" wurdest, indem du anderen einfach nur deine eigene Sprache beibringst. Hab deinen Kanal heute erst gefunden, aber mag deine Videos jetzt schon sehr. Und ja ich bin Deustch, fänds aber bei einer Kommentarsektiom, die zu über 50% aus nicht-deutschen besteht jetzt 'n bisschen doof, den Kommentar nur auf deustch zu schreiben.
Haha Ich lach mich Schlapp.
Ich hoffe du liest das ich wollte dir danken und zwar für dein Video von 06.08.2012 als Trixiberry und zwar das Video ,,Metrum eines Gedichts erkennen: Jambus, Trochäus, Anapäst oder Daktylus?,,
Ich hätte nie Gedacht das du das bist.Da fehlen mir etwas die Worte was ich sagen will du machst tolle Videos und nochmal danke für die Erklärung ich wette das hörst du nicht von einem
Anfängerrapper :'D Vielen Dank nochmal
IMHO is actually in my humble opinion
love you Trixi, you are doin great job
There's a few IDK IRL IMHO That was a LOL video. Thank you as always for another great video.
I thought it might be a bit prudent to interlude for a second here, because not all of these are acronyms, per se.
An acronym is specifically the term used when the first letters of a 'full form' create a pronounceable word. Eg: Lol, Lmao, etc.
However, one cannot call such contractions as 'fyi,' 'gtfo,' etc. as acronyms because they are pronounced as separate letters.
These contractions are more properly referred to as 'initialism.' Though a technical distinction that seldom makes its way into daily conversation, I thought it'd be right to point it out here since it _is_ an educational point and this is an _educational_ channel, albeit not for English, and the point still stands.
Thank you for reading the comment, and great job on the episode, as always!
Tbh i think you cannot ask „do germans understand that“ because imo it’s not related to your native language at all. It’s more about how often you face these acronyms. Wether you are German , English or whatever else.
Still interesting video :) keep it on !
Good point! :)
@@DontTrustTheRabbit - The alphabet soup of the internet is becoming its own language, IMHO. 😉
Yes, but some of these acronyms have equivalents in German - if you don't use international pages a lot, you might read "m.M.n." (meiner Meinung nach) more often than "imo" (in my opinion). Some acronyms are just more international than others. Also, I experienced that the Englisch speaking world uses a LOT more acronyms than the Germans.
@@annkathrinhanamond2982 It seems like we do it a bit more ergonomically too. lower-case full stop upper case full stop lower case full stop m.M.n. doesn't exactly roll off the fingertips.
it's even worse. the question in the video is "do germans know common english internet acronyms" and the title says "ENGLISH INTERNET SLANG Germans Don't Get"
and i guess we found out if "germans" know them or not by testing if trixie knows them or not.. so i guess trixie is "the germans".. srsly the amount of generalization is astounding... the whole of germany in one single youtuber... amazing...
I didn't know all of them, either, FWIW. The older one mentioned in the comments was YMMV but I don't see that anymore. It was the government sticker on new cars that listed the fuel mileage for a car and was, "Your Mileage May Vary" (according to the percentage of city driving to suburban driving, etc.)
Someone mentioned ATM, which is most often the cash machine, but in IT terms, I always think of Asynchronous Transfer Mode which is a network connection to provide a better guaranteed throughput than Ethernet collisions.
When I read French commenters (on French sites), I have to search my mind for their abbreviations for common words like peut-être or s'il te plaît. Since Trixie knows French, I'm sure that she acquired a bunch of those, too.
Horn Kraft
Your mileage may vary refers to the reduced age people may put on various sorts of public profiles or other.
smh
As an American, I know all the acronyms you presented but I only use about one-third. They are fine but I don't need to make the effort to put in short-cuts everywhere I can (I would also like to think I am intelligent enough not to resort to curse words as place-holders for what I am trying to say). I am not sure how I feel though about English dominating the acronyms. I think it would be interesting and educational to have other cultures contribute. Come on Germany you have so many great expressions that say so much - put some acronyms out there :-)
im texan in sicily.. i didnt understand 3/4s of them
it tells you americans and youth are rude and crude
Pretty much all of the ones you didn't know I didn't know either as a native English speaker (although SMH is used a lot) and people don't really use them anymore as far as I know, so I think your understanding of internet acronyms is actually really good!
Melia
ikr
Most all of these acronyms were originally used in cell phone messaging which was limited to 160 characters per message and was referred to as *"text speak" or "SMS language"* Unfortunately it has been unnecessarily carried over onto the internet manly by people who either can't spell or can't take the time to write out the full words.
I'm one of those grown adults who still use chatrooms to be social. It makes me really sad and irritated when I see other grown adults speaking like "how are u". The lack of a "?" after a question is also really common which just passive-aggressively not makes me want to answer.
@@PixelatedH2O normally that's "how r u" 😉
@@upfreaks I've unfortunately seen it both ways.
I would say, these acronyms are not that common in normal writing or chatting except maybe afk and lol and I don't understand why to use them. On the other hand when you are gaming for example and only have limited time to spend on your chat, such abbreviations get pretty use full.
But I also think, that what acronyms are used are very depended on the game or chatroom your are in.
Actually, it gets better: a Lot of the abriviations, acronyms, and initialisms used in txt and chatrooms etc? Yeah, quite a few of them first showed up (at least in a way there is record of) in Telegraph Messages. Most dropped out of use along with the telegraph as well, admittedly. They're just the easiest way to reduce the number of characters needed while minimising data loss. Conversational file compression, as it were.
FYI....Thanks in Advance is how I understand it....YMMD or YMMV = Your mileage may differ (or your mileage may vary)...in my humble opinion = IMHO....
IMHO in my *humble* opinion. And as a former IT - supporter I was missing my preferred one: PEBCAK
Hi Trixi, Nice to see you looking good! You're a genuine treasure. I hope your kids are well. One detail: I think it's "For Your Information."
Do you know what 'See you next Tuesday' means? Are there any examples of this kind of extended word elaboration in German?
Mondays are sometimes a holiday in my work, i still mistakenly use that phrase with the best intent, even though it's been twisted .
ken winston
No need to be ashamed or apologetic about it. Just because it also has another slang meaning you don't have to stop using it in its normal meaning. Context and emphasis usually make unambiguously clear how you meant it.
I use LOL as an indicator as to whether something I say is a joke or if I thought something was funny. This ensures that when a text is written, the intent is not misconstrued as being rude (in the case of a comment which could be taken as an insult) or being serious (such as when a comment is meant to be sarcastic and not serious).
The use of LOL, no longer means that someone is actually laughing, although it could, but rather that something is designated as funny. LMAO on the other hand, is a stronger form of LOL and thus most likely means someone is actually laughing out loud.
You're not alone. I'm an American, and, I don't know what most of these mean.
Yes true but I still trust the rabbit 🐰
Then there's the engineering term RCH, a unit of measurement describing very small adjustments.
7:57 IMHO = In My _Humble_ Opinion (because some English think it's rude to say you are sure of something).
Thanks (thx) Trixi ... many of those look like gamer "chat shorthand". I'm online all the time (no boards or games) and see a third or fewer of your examples. That was fun ... it's good to see you again ;-)
When Trixie does these kind of things they are better than anyone else's.
Hi Trixi, do you know the Jargon File? And Eric, does he know at least some of its entries? You're gonna like it, especially the older version: www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg262.txt . And it teaches *a lot* about the history of IT and "hacker subculture".
Strictly an acronym has to be said as a word, like NASA, if you just say the letters it is an initialisation. But common usage is acronym for both
the only FYI i heard of is "for your information" (often sarcastic)
but there was some i never heard of in this list
I’m a native English speaker from the US and I’ll be real honest, I figured most of them out but I didn’t know half these were a thing so you did really really well
Imagine... a German giving us FLAK* over acronyms. * (look it up)
DFTT: Don't Feed The Trolls
Ah! This one I'm going to start using.
Did you notice a sign online saying "Dead Acronym Storage"? Apparently some members of my generation (Generation X) did.
TBH implies that, up to this point, the speaker hasn't been. And that's just one of the many problems these things indicate.
Well in some contexts it can really mean that effectively being shorthand for "Up till now I was politely trying to save your feelings but now you are about to get it"
You knew a lot of them that I didn’t 😂 I have never in my life heard of HAND
A lot of these predate the internet and even dialup BBS's, some came about due to the per letter charge for telegrams and other message systems, there are even examples of some of these used by early users of various postal services and they come up in dairies from even earlier times.
AFAP could be a variation on ASAP and stand for As Fast As Possible.
Hey Trixie,
Love all of your videos; however, I think that your hubby was definitely a little hard on you with regard to these acronyms. Most of them aren't commonly used in conversation with regular English speakers (unless he was also grabbing them from different aspects other than 'social'...per se). Here are some of the ones that (at least I find) are the most commonly used: TBH, WTF, LOL, IMO, SMH, TL;DR, DM (direct message), JSYK (just so you know), TBT (throwback Thursday), OMW (on my way), RT (retweet), IRL, NSFW (not safe for work), FML (though it seems to be getting less popular), BRB, BAE (commonly used as a short form for babe, but it also stands for before anything else), HIFW (how I feel/felt when), and this little treat: OTL (not actually an acronym, but rather a depiction of a man kneeling ("O" is the head, "T" is the back and arms, and "L" is the bent legs). (However the last one really isn't commonly used, it's just fun.)
Also, G2G has sort of fallen out of use at least here anyways; kids still use it though.
All in all, I think that Germans have a pretty good grasp of English internet slan. Great job!
Es tut mir leid, ich weiß, dass mein Kommentar sehr lang ist, aber diese Dinge sind sehr interessant und es gibt viel zu besprechen.
What a good video! I didn't know all of thrm, either. Please provide some German acronyms. Is "Ach du Lieber" just "AdL" ?
Some of those date back to the BBS days, before the internet!
Trixi, just a couple of comments. Firstly, FYI, FYI stands for, " for your information" (not "for your interest" - at least I've never heard it used that way) Secondly, many of the examples you gave are initialisms, not acronyms. The difference is that that in order to qualify as an acronym, an abbreviation must form a word. The acronym HAND that you mentioned would generally qualify as an acronym. Initialisms on the other hand do not spell out words and cannot be said as a word. FYI is a perfect example, as you can't say the letters F, Y and I as one word. You have to say "F," "Y" and "I" individually to represent "for your information."
Anyway, just FYI. :)
Mitchell Hodgemeyer
Have you got a touch of OCD?
OCD,not a word but yet an acronym.
OMG!
ROFL.
@@slimboyfat9409 What are you babbling about? Your comment makes no sense AND isn't funny. And "OCD" is an initialism by the way, not an acronym, so your reading comprehension sucks too. You strike me as the type of dude who cracks dumb jokes at parties trying to seem funny to girls, but they kind of just look at one another after you say something, each thinking to themselves what a hopeless dork you are and hoping you'll walk away soon. Good luck dude.
N8 doesn't work in English lol. I find myself doing the same thing now.
American, from that transitional generation who grew up without the net, and still constantly looking these things up to be sure what they mean. Your show is fun and informative, thank you.
IMHO - can also be In My Humble Opinion. It primary meaning cracks me up for same reason you pointed out. Like TBH which implies either the person lies often, or the person is about to lie, but really wants you to believe them anyway.
STFU - can also be Search The F**king Archives. Used to imply the poster is utterly lazy, entitled or attention seeking so quit trying to waste everyone's time.
IMHO, LRL came about because LOL became so cliche. It's like OMG or FYI. Played out. FYI, if I wrote it to you then it's information I was clearly intending to pass on to you.
No, I did not know STFU was like RTFM.
@@kennethflorek8532 Wahh, Wahh, Wahh. Oops, I should know better than to comment while groggy. STFA...STFU.... only one letter off.
I always to consider acronyms to be intiatialisms that spell out another actual word, like laser or radar.
Correct. NASA, NATO, MILF are all acronyms. But FYI, FAQ and TGIF are abbreviations.
I don't usually write internet acronyms. I got used to them in the Army but im sick of them. I think u did awesome, great vid as usual. Eric u lucky
Always love seeing your videos!
Awesome video....I had a couple I did not know about. Thank you!
English is my first language and most of the ones you missed I've never even heard of... So good job.