Chat Lingo

Instant messaging and chat communications are often more informal than email, and you’ll see people using acronyms to quickly express emotion or just to communicate a lot of information with less effort. They can be intimidating and confusing to the newbie, so keep that in mind when chatting with someone new.

The List

To make the journey easier, we’ve compiled a list of the acronyms we’re aware of. If you run across one you don’t know, you might find it here. But if you run across one that’s not on our list yet, send us your acronyms!

?  - huh?; what?
143  - love ya!
2  - to; too
4  - for
86  - to desert; to leave

afaik  - as far as I know
afk  - away from the keyboard
aka - also known as
a/s/l  - age/sex/location
awy  - away

b  - be
b4  - before
b/c  - because
bb  - buh-bye
bbiaf  - be back in a few 

Special thanks to our contributors: 

babybear, IccleBlueAngel, bastard guy, Anna, Sathallrin, Craigenheimer, digitalant, Billy Brock, Geeker, Andrew Sowders, melissa275, Tim H, Cassie T, Carolyn A, Bartaloafa, Kate, m A n D y, GrimReaper, Ashley, GamecockDS31, Samie Baby, veggiegirl22, sweettart0927, knight4him85,  Brianne, Frutzle, pnguyen_74, shruthi99, x03nicole22x, rennagata92 and adrien.

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