A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email - Jargon

A number of new users have asked me to include a jargon/acronym page for email. Contrary to how they might feel, there is not a conspiracy out there to try to exclude them Every group that spends any time together develops its own shorthand notation; it is not surprising that people forced to use the unnatural action of typing would be inclined towards acronyms. Some of these come from Usenet newsgroups, some of the more "gestural" ones come from Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Obviously it would be nice of seasoned users to not pepper novices with an enormous amount of jargon, but on the Internet, nobody knows you are a newcomer. You'll get hit with these eventually, so I'll try to soften the blow.

Here are some of the most common acronyms:

• BTW - By The Way
• FYI - For Your Information
• IMHO - In My Humble/Honest Opinion
• TIA - Thanks In Advance (also sometimes written advTHANKSance)
• RTFM - Read The Manual ("Manual" here refers to any documentation)
• LOL - [I] Laughed Out Loud [at what you wrote]
• ROTFL - [I am] Rolling On The Floor Laughing [at what you wrote]
• RSN - Real Soon Now
• YMMV - Your Milage May Vary (taken from a disclaimer that legally must be given any time automotive fuel efficiency ratings are used in U.S. advertisements)

A term that I would love to see popularized is "NRN", for "No Response Needed". Sometimes, without body language, it isn't clear when an email-based conversation should be ended. Peter Wone suggests that "NRSVP" for "non respondez-vous s'il vous plais", or "pleast do not respond" is easier to guess than "NRN".

To unravel jargon and technical Internet terms, see the fine Internet Literacy Consultants' Glossary of Internet Terms. There is also a Dictionary of Computer Acronyms and Jargon

Created 30 Dec 1995

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