Quick tip: the letter ‘i’

By | March 1, 2013
This content is 11 years old. Please, read this page keeping its age in mind. Thank you.

As I mentioned before, I’m currently hard at work on the new videos, all about modern technology – PCs, tablets, the internet, smartphones and so on… all covered from the very beginning so you don’t have to already know anything!

But more about them in a moment – first, a few things that have caught my eye that you might find useful.

Confusing abbreviations
I’m not sure how long ago it ran, but somewhere I remember an advert for shorthand courses that went something like “f yu cn rd ths, u cn bcm a sec & gt a gd jb w hi py” (If you can read this, you can become a secretary and get a good job with high pay)

But some of the abbreviations used all over the place on the internet and in emails are not quite so obvious.

A lot of them started in text messages on phones – when it was really fiddly to type in a full word so people abbreviated it.  The abbreviated words are usually not too hard to work out, like the shorthand advert.  But there are also some abbreviations for phrases and that’s harder to guess at.

So here’s a list of some of the most common abbreviations you’ll see on the internet or in emails:

  • LOL – Laugh/laughing out loud (also you sometimes see ALOL – actually laughing out loud)
  • BTW – By the way
  • IIRC – If I remember correctly
  • AFAIK – As far as I know
  • IMO/IMHO – In my opinion/In my humble opinion (or even IMHBAO – I my humble but accurate opinion)
  • THX – Thanks
  • 2day – today
  • 2moro – Tomorrow
  • B4 – before
  • CU – See you
  • GR8 – great
  • ATM – At the moment
  • OMG – Oh my God
  • AFAP – as far as possible
  • FYI – for your information
  • TVM – thanks very much

Sadly, SWALK doesn’t seem so relevant in the day of the email – sealing an envelope with a kiss is one thing but I’m not so sure people are going to kiss the computer screen!

Quick tip: the letter i
While we’re talking about letters, words and abbreviations, here’s a quick question I was asked the other day:  What does the letter i mean in front of something – you see it all over the place.

It’s a good question: You get iphones, ipads, ipods, the icloud and there’s even a rumour about an iwatch.

Generally, it doesn’t really mean anything.  It’s a technique the company Apple use to come up with names for their products.

For example, when they brought out a mobile phone, they called it an iphone.  It’s just the name of the type of mobile phone they make.

And when they created a version of the cloud (a way of storing things on the internet instead of on your PC) they called it iCloud.

They also have iTunes – which is a website store where you can buy music from them to play on your PC, mobile phone or other gadgets.

Occasionally some other company will use it (I remember seeing an “iTeddy” on Dragons’ Den a while ago) but generally it just means it’s something from Apple.

Announcing – but keep it under your hat until April
I mentioned we’re hard at work on the new videos and I can now announce that they’ll be available to order in the second half of March – but only to you and the other newsletter readers.  They won’t be available to the general public until after that, some time in April.

At the same time, I’ll be announcing something else that’s kept me busy lately, as well – but that really is top secret until the second half of March.

Right, I’d better get back to it!