Internet shorthand can sometimes be difficult to parse — but (arguably, perhaps) nowhere encourages the use of acronyms and abbreviations in quite the same way Reddit does. But hey, good news if you've ever found yourself wondering what “tl;dr” actually means — some kind soul has put together an infographic defining 50 of the most commonly-encountered Reddit acronyms. Of course, they're not just limited to Reddit; a lot of them not only show up in other places on the Internet, but also (in some cases) pre-date Reddit. All the same, though — you probably won't see them in quite the same volume anywhere else on the web.
I may often have no idea what contemporary slang means (to be honest, I'm still trying to figure out “on fleek”), but I'm usually pretty up on my Internet acronyms — and more specifically, my Reddit acronyms, because I spend way too much time on the content-sharing site. That said, though, I was actually kind of surprised at how many of these I didn't know. For example, I had no idea the phrase “die in a fire” was used frequently enough to warrant its own shorthand (DIAF). Or “someone who isn't me” (SWIM). Or “thank you based god” (TYBG). I actually had to look up more details about that last one, since it's very, very far from self explanatory: According to Know Your Meme, rapper Lil B refers to himself as “Based God,” so hey, look — another celebrity-inspired meme.
You check out the full infographic below, but just for kicks, here are a few of the acronyms it contains — as well as some things they don't stand for. Because let's face it: The first thing “IANAL” brings to mind isn't the law.
- FTFY is not a misspelling of “fifty.” It stands for “fixed that for you,” and is frequently deployed when Redditors fix each others' typos, or amend comments for comedic effect.
- QFT is not an abbreviation of “queefed.” It translates to “quote for truth,” and can be used in pretty much the same way as “true that.” Clearly I need to update my constant usage of “true that,” because I was not aware we had moved on from it.
- IANAL does not refer to your behind. It means “I am not a lawyer,” and appears frequently on the r/legaladvice subreddit. A disclaimer, it's usually followed by a “but” and then a piece of advice. Take it or leave it as you see fit.
- IIRC is not a typo of “IRC,” which once referred to “Internet Relay Chat” (I'm showing my age, aren't I?). It's a truncation of “If I recall correctly.” Its usage is self-explanatory.
- TL;DR is not some weird sort of emoticon. It stands for “too long; didn't read”; it often appears at the end of incredibly long posts to denote a one-to-two sentence summary for those who couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing. The cleverer your TL;DR, the better.
Check out the full infographic here:
Images: Fotolia; Giphy; Imgur
