Buzz
When it was first released in the late 1990s, the iconic web guide Wired Style was revolutionary—but now, it contains a lot of terms that are no longer in use. Here are 16 outdated acronyms from Wired Style' that were common in the early days of the internet. How many of them do you remember?
1. Cha
Early internet users weren't always known for their politeness. CHA stood for "click here a**hole." Back in the '90s, that click could have been on a "hotlink" or a "hotspot."
2. and 3. IOW and OTOH
"On the other hand," online etiquette was still a major concern. "In other words," some people were still taking the time to give their "gigathanks."
4. F2F
We still use IRL, another term from Wired Style, but the use of f2f for "face to face" has faded, along with its counterpart, "facemail."
5. LAT
We still use the phrase "lovely and talented," but somehow the acronym just didn't catch on.
6. POTS
Wired Style also includes the term "landline," which is still in use, but we no longer talk about POTS, an abbreviation for "plain old telephone service."
7. QOS
If your "quality of service" isn't up to par, you might find yourself in a tough spot when you promise, "I'll send you the JPEGs, but the message file will be 900K."
8. S!MT!!OE!!!
With a series of ever-increasing exclamation marks, this acronym stands for "Sets! My teeth!! On edge!!!"
9. SCSI
Pronounced "scuzzy," this acronym refers to small computer system interface—the type of port we used before USB ports became widespread.
10. TEOTWAWKI
This unwieldy acronym stands for "the end of the world as we know it." As a throwback, Wired Style mentions that it's "the shorthand of Internet survivalists who believed Y2K spells doomsday."
11. TMOT
"Trust me on this," if you want to preserve your place among the "digerati."
12. TTYTT
This perfectly balanced acronym means "to tell you the truth."
13. WADR
"With all due respect," no one uses the term "meatspace" anymore either.
14. WTFIGO
Curiously, Wired Style has an entry for "what the f*** is going on?" but skips over the simpler WTF.
15. YA
No, it hasn't always referred to Young Adult literature. This acronym originally stood for "yet another": the example sentence provided by Wired Style is "Microsoft released YA browser upgrade."
16. YOYOW
True, "you own your own words" (or YOYW, "you own your words"), but thankfully we've moved past the era of "cyber-" everything.
Finally, it's almost as revealing to notice which widely-used internet acronyms Wired Style doesn't feature—LOL and ROTFL are included, but neither WTF nor OMG are mentioned.
