LJ-speak
Whenever I use a common LJ abbreviation or acronym in a post, it's pretty dependable that I'll get at least a couple of comments asking what the heck it means. Hey, I ain't casting no aspersions...it took me forever to figure out what AFK meant.
So, in my neverending quest to provide useful services here at Mad Lori's Blog, I am posting this list of the most commonly-used LJisms. Please, feel free to suggest additions in the comments and I'll edit the post accordingly.
AFK: Away from Keyboard
GIP: Gratuitous Icon Post (i.e. making a post just to show off a new icon)
ETA: Edited To Add (not to be confused with Estimated Time of Arrival)
OMG: Oh my god
WTF: What the fuck?
LOLZ: Laughing Out Loud. The Z on the end means nothing. It's just part of the general LJ trend (a trend which baffles me even while I do it myself) of adding random letter Zs to acronyms (as in OMGZ or ZOMG)
BNF: Big Name Fan
Flist: Short for friends-list.
Flock: Short for friends-lock.
YMMV: Your mileage may vary
OTOH: On the other hand
ITA: I totally agree
IMHO: In my humble opinion
IIRC: If I recall correctly
Meme: A poll/quiz/clickie thing/list of questions that gets passed around everybody's journal at roughly the speed of the space shuttle on re-entry
RPG: Role-playing game. Applies equally to offline games like D&D or online, journal-based role-plays.
RPS or RPF: Real-person slash or real-person fic. One of my biggest squicks. It's fanfiction but instead of characters, people write about actual people. You find a lot of it in boy-band fandoms and LotR. Speaking of...
LotR: Lord of the Rings
VSD: The Very Secret Diaries, the significant contribution to pop culture made by our own epicyclical. It's a LotR humor thing. Google it.
by request, OMGWTFBBQ: It doesn't really mean anything. People started putting OMGWTF together, because they do sort of go together, but then the ridiculousness of those three-letter acronyms getting strung together just made people start putting BBQ, randomly, onto the end of it. That's all. And if you ever hang around Lost fans, you'll hear the even funnier OMGWTFBBQPOLARBEAR.
Gank or Gack: To steal or borrow from someone else's LJ. Usually applies most frequently to memes or LJ icons. Ganking icons without permission is considered bad Netiquette.
And of course, the venerable t00by: Not really LJspeak but a refugee from hackerspeak...note the use of two zeroes instead of letter Os. T00by is such a useful term, and it pretty much means whatever you want it to men. In its most common usage, something that's "t00by" is dumb, thick-headed, cliched, trite, overused, or generally not quite up to par. The word "t00b" has many uses. It can be an adjective: "That fic was so t00by, I hated it." It can be a verb, in which case it means to aimlessly perambulate: "I did nothing today but t00b around Wikipedia." It can be a noun, in which case it's usually a term of dubious endearment: "Awww, you're such a t00b" or possibly "You fucking t00b!" So versatile, the hard-working "t00b."
Post a comment if there's one of those terms or abbreviations you've never understood, or if you have an addition to the list.
So, in my neverending quest to provide useful services here at Mad Lori's Blog, I am posting this list of the most commonly-used LJisms. Please, feel free to suggest additions in the comments and I'll edit the post accordingly.
AFK: Away from Keyboard
GIP: Gratuitous Icon Post (i.e. making a post just to show off a new icon)
ETA: Edited To Add (not to be confused with Estimated Time of Arrival)
OMG: Oh my god
WTF: What the fuck?
LOLZ: Laughing Out Loud. The Z on the end means nothing. It's just part of the general LJ trend (a trend which baffles me even while I do it myself) of adding random letter Zs to acronyms (as in OMGZ or ZOMG)
BNF: Big Name Fan
Flist: Short for friends-list.
Flock: Short for friends-lock.
YMMV: Your mileage may vary
OTOH: On the other hand
ITA: I totally agree
IMHO: In my humble opinion
IIRC: If I recall correctly
Meme: A poll/quiz/clickie thing/list of questions that gets passed around everybody's journal at roughly the speed of the space shuttle on re-entry
RPG: Role-playing game. Applies equally to offline games like D&D or online, journal-based role-plays.
RPS or RPF: Real-person slash or real-person fic. One of my biggest squicks. It's fanfiction but instead of characters, people write about actual people. You find a lot of it in boy-band fandoms and LotR. Speaking of...
LotR: Lord of the Rings
VSD: The Very Secret Diaries, the significant contribution to pop culture made by our own epicyclical. It's a LotR humor thing. Google it.
by request, OMGWTFBBQ: It doesn't really mean anything. People started putting OMGWTF together, because they do sort of go together, but then the ridiculousness of those three-letter acronyms getting strung together just made people start putting BBQ, randomly, onto the end of it. That's all. And if you ever hang around Lost fans, you'll hear the even funnier OMGWTFBBQPOLARBEAR.
Gank or Gack: To steal or borrow from someone else's LJ. Usually applies most frequently to memes or LJ icons. Ganking icons without permission is considered bad Netiquette.
And of course, the venerable t00by: Not really LJspeak but a refugee from hackerspeak...note the use of two zeroes instead of letter Os. T00by is such a useful term, and it pretty much means whatever you want it to men. In its most common usage, something that's "t00by" is dumb, thick-headed, cliched, trite, overused, or generally not quite up to par. The word "t00b" has many uses. It can be an adjective: "That fic was so t00by, I hated it." It can be a verb, in which case it means to aimlessly perambulate: "I did nothing today but t00b around Wikipedia." It can be a noun, in which case it's usually a term of dubious endearment: "Awww, you're such a t00b" or possibly "You fucking t00b!" So versatile, the hard-working "t00b."
Post a comment if there's one of those terms or abbreviations you've never understood, or if you have an addition to the list.