Chat abbreviations

• :) or :-) - A smiley face (turn it 90 degrees to the right)
• :( - Like :) but a frown or sad face
• :-Þ - sticking your tongue out.
• @)--->--- or @}-'--,-- - A rose

• M at the beginning is for married where S at the beginning is for single. This is optional.
• Last letter: M for male, F for female, T for transexual/transgender.
• Second from last denotes ethnic background: W for white, B for black, A for Asian, H for Hispanic, etc
• Third letter from the end: G for gay, B for Bi, and S for straight
• Examples:
  • GWM - Gay White Male
  • GAM - Gay Asian Male
  • GBM - Gay Black Male
  • BWM - Bi White Male
  • SGAM - Single Gay Asian Male
  • MBWM - Married Bi White Male

• Chatters
  • GLBT - Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender
    • Queer - Used to denote the entire GLBT community
    • Tranny - Abbreviated form of Transgender
    • Grandmother - A more experienced person in the gay community that is as a friend and source of advice for those just coming out. Grandmothers help those coming out by answering their questions without judging the person who asks the question. They remember being there too.
    • Top and Bottom - These terms have two different meaning depending on the context they are used in. When used to describe the sex act a person enjoys, their meanings correspond to the preference to giving and receiving pleasure. These terms can also describe a person's personality, more specifically a top is the more dominant while a bottom is more submissive.
  • Chicken - A term used to denote someone who is under 18 years of age.
    • Chicken Hawk - Someone who chases after chicken.
  • Women
    • Fag Hag - A derogatory termed used to describe a woman who hangs around gay men and try to convert them to a heterosexual lifestyle.
  • Men
    • Flaming Queen - One who acts more feminine than any woman.
    • Queen - Someone who act feminine.
    • Mary - A term of endearment used between gay men when refering to each other. As is "Oh Mary, get with it."
  • Ignorant
    • Flame - A type of hate message. These are usually written when someone gets upset and is blowing off some stream.
• Chatting itself
  • Hacker - A person who works at getting the computer to do more than it was designed to do. Hackers do things legally which is in contrast to a Cracker. The news media usually misuses this term.
  • Cracker - A person who illegally breaks into a computer system. These are the people the FBI goes after and sends to prison.
  • ESL - English as a Second Language (ok, it's not a gay term, but gays need to know it for the chat rooms). This denotes that a person's first language is not English. People who are ESL may appear shy in a chat area because they worry about their English skills. These people should be welcomed and helped. They usually have trouble understanding slang, so be ready to seriously explain a term so they can understand you. Many of the ESL people are very interesting out in the Internet. Be a nice person and help them integrate and open up in chat areas. Note: Never, never, never ridicule their language skills. They are usually learning another language, and English can be very hard to learn. If you don't believe me, look at all the grammar and spelling mistakes in every chat area, and those are by people who English is a first language. Let's keep the Internet Internationally friendly.
  • Yelling - Typing in all capitol letters is considered yelling on the Internet.

Internet Communication Methods

• E-mail - electronic mail (Note: US Postal Mail is called Snail Mail on the Internet)
• ftp - File Transfer Protocol :Sites that start with ftp are locations for downloading files. You will see an interface like dos.
• gopher - A menu driven Internet site.
• irc - Internet Relay Chats: Party lines of the Internet. IRC channels are used for having group or 1 to 1 conversations. MUD (Multi-User Domains) are like a irc, but also allows interaction like moving to another room, getting an item, etc. Something akin to the old text adventures that were out when computers first had games, but in this case you might not be sure if you are interacting with a person or a computer.
• MIRC- another variation of an IRC.
• mailing lists - An automated subscription system which automatically forwards e-mail from one person in a group to the entire group. This is used to keep groups in contact with each other.
• News groups- Similar to a mailing list but without the email. Messages are posted in a hierarchy structure and the user decides which articles to read. Unlike mailing lists, not every article is downloaded to the user's computer(unless the user wants to do that.) Also referred as Usenet.
• Web, the - The representation on information through hyperlinks - in English, multimedia approach to see the information. Text and graphics are brought together(hypertext) - kind of like a WordPerfect document in full color. Different styles/languages are used on the web for these documents.
  • html - HyperText Markup Language
  • shtml - Super HyperText Markup Language
  • vrml - Virtual Reality Modeling Language

General Internet Terms

• Baud rate - The speed at which bits are transmitted in a second. The faster the Baud, the faster the modem. Baud is being replaced by BPS(Bits Pers Second)
• Cracker - A person who illegally breaks into a computer system. These are the people the FBI goes after and sends to prison.
• Distance Learning- Classes that are offered in such a way as you need not appear on a campus which may be in the form of video tapes, classes via the Internet, and other media.
• DNS - Domain Name Server: Computer systems are address by 4 sets of numbers separated by a period which is also translated into a text string like "www.scifi.com."
• End User - The human who ends up running the programs that programmers write.
• Flame - A type of hate message. These are usually written when someone gets upset and is blowing off some stream.
• Hacker - A person who works at getting the computer to do more than it was designed to do. Hackers do things legally which is in contrast to a Cracker. The news media usually misuses this term.
• IP Address - Internet Protocol address: a numerical address which identifies a machine on the Internet. Needed to connect to a server/service.
• ISP - Internet Service Provider or the provider of your connection to the Internet( like AOL, Compuserve, etc)
• Java - 1) The coffee you drink while working on the Internet(listen to Manhattan Transfer - Java Jive). 2) Refers to the system of loading C++ programs into your browser to perform functions in your GUI. This means that they can create a program and have your web browser(if compatible) load and run the program to perform some neat stuff for you.
• K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid or the engineers motto. It is a reminder to try to make things simpler instead of the very human act of trying to make everything more difficult than it has to be.
• Finger - A standard protocol that lists user ID information for a host and allows for finding a person online.
• GUI - Graphical User Interface or simply known as a web browser such as Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc. It is a program that makes it simple for the end user to connect to the Internet without having to learn an endless list of protocols.
• MOTD - Message Of The Day, just that.
• Newbie- Someone new at using the Internet. There are help groups for newbies.
• PPP - Point to Point Protocol: A common method of making a connection between two computers.
• Recursion - see Recursion ( I Couldn't resist :) )
• Scanner - Any device that takes information from the real world and digitalizes it for a computer.
• Search Engine - A program on the Internet that assists you in finding information. See www.yahoo.com as an example.
• Server - The company's computer system that you connect to in order to access the Internet.
• SLIP - Serial Line Internet working Protocol: a method of establishing an Internet connection over a serial/phone line.
• TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol: The standard means of transmission of data over the Internet.
• Telnet - A protocol and application which allows a user to interact with applications on another site as if the user were local.
• Typing in all capitol letters is considered yelling on the Internet.
• URL - Universal Resource Locator: Name, address, and method of retrieving information(HTML, FTP, Gopher, etc) from a host.
• Username - The name you log into your service with.
• WAIS - Wide Area Information Server: A database system.