Texting ab­bre­vi­ations: HTH!

Every field comes with its own vocab­u­lary. New words are con­stantly being added to dic­tion­ar­ies – evidence that language is subject to diverse in­flu­ences. And so, it should come as no surprise that the wide­spread use of smart­phones has led to a slew of new terms. One of the reasons for this is that typing on a small keyboard requires a lot of effort. Even the periods in tra­di­tion­al ab­bre­vi­ations like ‘etc.’ and ‘Ms.’ are often left off to reduce the texting effort. The result is that texting acronyms and text message ab­bre­vi­ations get shorter and shorter.

Have you de­ciphered the acronym in the title yet? The ex­pres­sion is one of many texting acronyms that stand for fre­quently used words and phrases. Many text message ab­bre­vi­ations have found their way into everyday life offline, such as in business names like ‘Food4U’. Some phrases have even become part of spoken language, like ‘btw’ and ‘lol’. Other parts of chat language serve to take the place of non-verbal com­mu­nic­a­tion – winky faces, frowns, and smileys. Ori­gin­ally, chat language was limited to a few character com­bin­a­tions like emoticons. The character com­bin­a­tion :-O, for example, sym­bol­ises the face of someone who’s surprised or as­ton­ished. Nowadays we have a near endless amount of chat smileys, which are used alongside numerous texting ab­bre­vi­ations. Our guide will tell you everything you need to know. And don’t forget: ‘hf irl’!

In the above example, several ab­bre­vi­ations and acronyms appear as a natural part of the message. ‘Please’ becomes ‘plz’ and ‘thx’ becomes ‘thanks’. ‘Btw’ is one of the most common texting acronyms and stands for ‘by the way’. The word ‘noob’ stands for ‘newbie’ and is internet slang for a clueless person.

And just like there are in­nu­mer­able texting ab­bre­vi­ations, there are also countless ways to refer to this internet language - internet slang, chat ab­bre­vi­ations, texting acronyms, text message ab­bre­vi­ations, chat jargon, online slang, and more.

The wide­spread use of smart­phones opened up new channels of com­mu­nic­a­tion: Messaging apps made it possible to send in­stant­an­eous messages back and forth with in­di­vidu­als or in group chats. The spread of mul­ti­play­er online computer games and the in­creas­ing pop­ular­ity of e-sports also led to a separate gamer jargon.

Texting ab­bre­vi­ations are also used in Livechats when you’re looking for technical or product support.

Another group that fre­quently uses texting acronyms are gamers, es­pe­cially in e-sports. They’ve developed special phrases and ab­bre­vi­ations for the things that happen in internet computer games.

Text message ab­bre­vi­ations are con­stantly changing, meaning that any list of them can only be taken as a snapshot. Acronyms are almost always written with lowercase letters and without periods in between. Below you’ll find a table with around 50 of the most common texting ab­bre­vi­ations and acronyms.