Internet Acronyms | Talk it up | Forums

I love acronyms, one of my fav areas being those used by nurses and ambulance officers (and presumably med students & doctors). Acronyms like PFO (pissed [drunk] and fell over), FOSIA (foreign object stuck in a**) and AFUNDY (absolutely f***ed, unfortunately not dead yet) always make me smirk.

 "One thing that's a bit puzzling is "lmao". What's the history behind that anyways?" 

Terms like LMAO, PMSL, ROFLMAO, are just more emphatic recognition of laughter (laughing my a** off, pissed myself laughing). LOL became so overused and has become more like a polite smile in recognition of humour or light-heartedness, so the more descriptive terms are used to show real laughter or that something is genuinely funny.

I think the article referred to was a bit underwhelming – I got the impression they are unaware how far back they were being used in bulletin boards before the web really took off. Many (most?) acronyms have more than one meaning and are contextual anyway. They are usually used by people in the same way as jargon generally, that is partially as shorthand but often more importantly to include/exclude people from a group – a quick way to tell the 1337 from the n00b5