A List of AIM Terms

An AIM term for "laughing out loud," LOL is now used in everyday speech.

AIM, acronym for America Online Instant Messenger, wasn't the first online chat program, but it remains one of the longest running. Today, it has been largely supplanted by other social networking websites. However, most of the terms used on these sites have been passed down from earlier chat applications, such as AIM. Some terms are abbreviations that use character combinations to stand in for commonly used phrases, while others use text to create pictorial representations of emotions.

Most Common

Among the most widely used AIM expressions are the terms "LOL," "OMG", "IMO" and "JK." These stand for "laughing out loud," "Oh my God," "in my opinion" and "just kidding," respectively Variations include "LOLROF" and "IMHO," or "laughing out loud rolling on floor" and "in my humble opinion," respectively. Other popular terms include "AAMOF" for "as a matter of fact," "LTNS" for "long time no see," "WTG" for "way to go" and "K" for "OK."

Emoticons

Emoticons are not abbreviations in the traditional sense. Rather, they use characters available on the keyboard to create images representing common emotional expressions. Some of the most common include : ) for happy, :( for sad, :D for a big smile, :/ for confused, ;) for winking, ;( for crying and :O for surprised. Some users add a dash between the characters that represent the eyes and the mouth to give the emoticon a nose. For example, the emoticon :-) still means happy.

Terms with Numerals

There are many terms that use abbreviations along with numerals. Sometimes users employ the numerals as numbers. Examples of this include "1NAM" and "121" for "one in a million" and "one-to-one, respectively. In other cases, numbers refer to the amount of letters in each word of a given phrase. The most popular example of this is "143," which means "I love you." Some terms use numbers to aid in the phonetic representation of a certain phrase, such as in "2EZ" "4AO" and "6Y," for "too easy," "for adults only" and "sexy," respectively. Finally, numbers can also be used in pictorial representations. For instance, "<3" can be used to stand in for a heart.

Etiquette

Certain expressions exist to convey the chatter's status. It's often considered impolite to fail to use these when they apply. For example, experienced chatters expect others to let them know when they are leaving their computer. In this case, the terms "BFN," "CYA" and "GTG" all suffice. They mean "bye for now," "see ya" and "got to go," respectively. If you're planning on leaving for only a short time, you can use "BRB" for "be right back," "BBL" for "be back later" or "BBS" for "be back soon." It also helps to type simply "BK" for "back" or "BAK" for "back at keyboard" when you return to let the other chatter know you have returned.