Pop Culture FTW
Ever wonder what all these acronyms on Twitter are? FTW, IRL, ROFL what? There are three solutions to getting to the bottom of all of this trendy talk, both of which save you the embarrassment of asking people publicly what things mean…
Urban Dictionary
We’ve talked before about Urban Dictionary which is a user written dictionary that changes as words are added to the slang-iverse. If you want to know what an acronym means or what a silly word means, chances are it’s there.
What the Trend?
As the most popular social network du jour, Twitter trends shift quickly and if you step away from the computer for more than an hour, you may come back to a phrase, word, hashtag or topic that makes no sense. To understand the lingo of Twitter, check out user-edited What The Trend that shows what topics are trending and why. Maybe you’ll finally figure out that “Logies” is an obscure Australian awards show airing this week and the mystery will be solved!
Last Ditch Effort
If you haven’t figured out what your mystery word means yet and you’ve read it on a social network like Twitter, there is a small chance it’s LOLcat language. Yes, I’m being serious. There is a glossary of lolcat speak based on the hit website ICanHasCheezburger where pictures of cats have captions meant to sound like kitty speak. It’s one of the most popular sites on the net and highly referred to.
Finally, if none of this helps, you can always ask someone publicly or privately and end the suspense!
Ken Brand
May 11, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Huh? WITHAYTA. ATCLTMMHS. WDPJSE. That’s all I have to say about that. HA, HA.
Lani Rosales
May 11, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Hey, watch your mouth 😉
Paula Henry
May 11, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I love Urban Dictionary – my son told me about it a few years ago – still, I can’t keep up with all the lingo, but at least I know where to go when I’m stuck. I call Lani 🙂
Ines Hegedus-Garcia
May 12, 2009 at 12:45 am
A group of Miamians made up a new one this week on Twitter (gotta go add it to Urban Dictionary) – we wanted a version of LOL in Spanish and came up with CUACUACUACUA but was way too long to write – then it was shortened to CUAx4 (you can change the #exponent depending on how funny the subject is). We also came up with CDLR and MDLR (cagandome de la risa or meandome de la risa)
As for Urban Dictionary….don’t know what I’d do without it. Every time I hear my kids use a word I’ve never heard – UD gives me the 411 🙂
Joe Loomer
May 12, 2009 at 5:16 am
@Ines – you had me at CDLR! My meager Spanish skills still managed to translate that one!
Matt Stigliano
May 12, 2009 at 9:07 am
I just turn to my trusted resource. @LaniAR In fact, the other day I saw her tweet about “astroturfing” and was about to ask her, but I wound up reading the article Benn wrote. Thank you AgentGenius.