INTERNET AND COMPUTER SLANG DICTIONARY

Kittell provides a resource for acronyms and slang terms used when texting or chatting online.

From the outset, this book presents a variety of symbols and characters—ampersands and carets, exclamation marks and parentheses—that converge to create a funny language, and the author deciphers them all. In this handy dictionary of Internet and computer slang, almost every possible phrase (if they can be called that) is defined. Classics, such as ROFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing), are here along with some that are a bit more esoteric, like KTNX (OK and thanks); OAOA (Over and Over Again); and CYLOR (Check Your Local Orthodox Rabbi). Different columns are given for capitalized and lowercased terms, but there’s no noticeable difference found between them. Many of the initializations are independent of Internet or computer usage but were included seemingly for completeness, e.g., DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and GM (General Motors). Some might find some of the terms both vulgar and offensive, like CYFF (Change Your Font, Fucker) and HB (Heeb, which is noted as derogatory). But the book is thorough, even including over 30 different variations on ROFL. Also presented are the abundant variety of smiley faces and the adorable “baby” ( ~:0 ). But after flipping through the book for a while, readers may wonder where this will fit in and whether they will want it as part of their library. For most people, their texting lexicon is either complete or they will pick up new terms in conversation, and if there is one that they cannot crack, there’s always Google. But books like this are often fun to flip through.

A thorough, quirky dictionary for jargon fans.