English IRC Language

From UniLang Wiki

When people write at internet chats or using SMS on their cellphones, they usually spell words differently and they use a lot of acronyms; capitals are never written. This is what we call IRC Language. English speakers are fond of acronyms and puns, and this naturally reflects in the English IRC Language. Let's see how it works:

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Spelling

Some words and sentences are spelled more like the way they're pronounced. This could be words like "night," that becomes "nite" and "light" that becomes "lite." As a result, English speakers also spells them different accordingly to their own accents: some English speakers would write "coz" and other would write "cuz." And both words refers to the real word "because."
Other words have their syllables replaced by letters or numbers with the same or approximately the same sound. Some common letters used for replacing are "u" instead of "you," "r" instead of "are" and "c" instead of "see". Furthermore, you can combine in into words, like "cu" which means "see you," "l8" which means "late," and so on. There's no limitations, and almost all words can be translated into this, using letters and numbers.

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Acronyms

Some expressions are actually transformed into acronyms, and these should be read by trying to figure out the original expressions, as simply pronouncing the letters' sounds won't help. There's a lot of those kind of words. Some of them are common used, while some of them are less used. People tends to come up with their own acronyms as well.

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Common used acronyms

  • wb: Welcome back
  • brb: Be right back
  • g2g: Got to go
  • bbl: Be back later
  • ty: Thank you
  • omg: Oh my god
  • omfg: Oh my fucking god
  • imo: In my opinion
  • asap: As soon as possible
  • afaik: As far as I know
  • lol: Laughing out lid
  • rofl: Rolling on floor laughing
  • roflmao: Rolling on floor laughing my ass off
  • asl: Age, Sex, Location
  • afk: Away from keyboard
  • aka: Also known as
  • btw: By the way
  • faq: Frequently asked questions
  • fyi: For your information
  • lmao: Laughing my ass off
  • irl: In real life
  • wtf: What the fuck

You can find more on IRC Languages in Wiki projects.

Retrieved from "http://home.unilang.org/wiki3/index.php/English_IRC_Language"
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