Help! What does all this chat jargon mean?
Chat room users often type in abbreviations, slang and emoticons to save time and express themselves better.
It's critical to know what they mean or you could end up getting very confused.
For example, if you didn't know 'BRB' meant 'be right back' you might think everyone had stopped talking to you mid-chat!
Some of the most common ones used on the BBCi chat rooms include:
Abbreviations
| Abbreviation | What it means |
| A/S/L | age?/sex?/location? |
| B4 | before |
| BRB | be right back |
| CYA L8R | see you later |
| IMO | in my opinion |
| IMHO | in my humble opinion |
| LOL | laughing out loud |
| ROTFL | rolling on the floor laughing |
| TY | thank you |
| U | You |
| WB | welcome back |
Slang
A lot of slang is also used in chat rooms which can be a little confusing if you don't understand it. For example a newbie is someone who is new to the internet.
| Slang | What it means |
| troll | people who visit chat rooms for the sole purpose of annoying other chatters |
| mods | moderators - people who check the chat rooms for bad behaviour, and kick offenders out |
| spam | duplicate or off-topic messages posted time after time, in order to disrupt a chat room |
| flaming | being nasty to other chat room users in order to start an argument |
Emoticons
Another really common feature of chat is emoticons. Emoticons, or 'smileys', help chatters express how they're feeling.
They're normal punctuation marks arranged to make faces. You just tilt your head to the left in order to see them!
| Emoticon | What it means |
| :-) | happy face (colon, dash, close bracket) |
| :-( | sad face (colon, dash, open bracket) |
| ;-) | winking face. Ideal to make it clear that what you've just typed is only a joke (semicolon, dash, close bracket) |
| :-o | shocked face (colon, dash, o) |
| :-p | tongue poking out (colon, dash, p) (generally used in cheeky good humour) |