I've seen "OTL" being used around the internet in forums and social networking sites and the like...I only today did I realise that in most contexts it is not actually an acronym but an emoticon...OTL much?

So I was wondering, have there been any weird internet slang, terminology or acronyms that took you a while to find out? Or did you already know to refer to urban dictionary or some other 'reliable' resource to find out?

I know for me, it took me a while to realise that "jk" was supposed to be an acronym for "just kidding" and not an abbreviation of the word "joke", fortunately the context fit either way for that misunderstanding...and "LMAO" was also another one that took me longer than it should've for me to find out, through asking.

gpoy is one that took me a while to get. I even went and looked, found out, and then forgot again later.

I didn't really get what OTL was for a long time, either. My best friend started using it constantly for a while, and at first I was so confused until I finally just asked her what it meant. I had kind of guessed the general meaning just from the context, but for a while I thought the letters were supposed to stand for something, too. xD

Then for a while, even after I knew what it meant, I kept getting it confused with OTP... which was another one that took me forever to figure out. I kind of got the general meaning of that one, too, though, so for a time I was thinking we were not using OTL correctly at all since I thought it was the same thing as OTP.

SMH confused me for an eternity, too.

I would always mean to look them up; then I would keep forgetting and never get around to it and just keep wondering...

OTL was definitely a weird one for me. I still have to look at it all squinty eyed to see the person curled up in the fetal position. I probably spent half a year going "Wtf is that stupid thing anyway" and going through a hundred different possible acronyms in my head before I gave up and went to urban dictionary. I was just stubborn, though. I knew urban dictionary existed, but I like to figure things out on my own.

GPOY is one I know the meaning of but still can't fully remember half the time. I think it's not a good acronym for what it's supposed to mean.

Those Asian smileys were also kinda foreign to me for a long time before I figured them out. Some of them don't really look like smileys. XP

Also, TL;DR confused me for awhile.

Pretty sure it was someone on Mene that told me what OTL meant, same with orz ha

My most recent one was doge on Tumblr is pronounced doggie not dohge

The MRW stuff... that stuff took me FOREVER...
Apparently it means "My Reaction When..."
Oh and there's MFW too... "My Face When..."

Learned those last week.

Hey I'd say Urban Dictionary is about as reliable of a dictionary for sland as you're going to get. Just gotta scroll down a bit for some till it fits the context.

@ Iku - What the heck is gpoy? I've seen that before...

@ Mira - OTP? Don't think I've seen that one o.o

Originally Posted by ElysiumFate

Those Asian smileys were also kinda foreign to me for a long time before I figured them out. Some of them don't really look like smileys. XP

When I read that I was suddenly reminded of the (T_T) smiley...which I apparently ruined the image of for Poet...back when we were discussing it a while back.

I usually use Orz instead of OTL...it just comes more easily to me.
囧 took me longer to get than it should've, considering how obviously it was a face...

Back when I first started getting into the Internetz and joined a few forums, lol confused me for the longest time...I kept thinking it was a face until I finally asked and was like, "....Oh."

Ttyl, f2f, and asap also took me a while to get.

@Poet: GPOY means Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself

I ONLY JUSt UNDERSTOOD IT HALFWAY THROUGH THIS THREAD. OTL does look very very much like an acronym, something a long the lines of FML. I just assumed 'orz' was kind of a noise. Maybe a pitiful noise.

I think OTL can mean "out to lunch," but I don't think anyone uses it like that. XD I use OTL often. I correlate it to a kind of FAIL emoticon. X3

@Poet - OTP means "one true pairing." o 3o People use it a lot on Tumblr.

I always forget what YOLO means. o wo;

I kept staring at OTL trying to work out what it was, and i honestly wouldn't have realised if somebody hadn't said! I think i'm way out of the loop with these things though...The basic ones i use and understand are TL;DR, OTP (though that took a while before i actually looked it up), and the old basic ones like LOL, and ROFL.

orz can be pronounce better. ORZ...

as for 囧... I am surprised that it is a word. jiong. LOL. I wonder do Chinese have that word in ancient time.

@Biggles: I always thought orz was someone saying sorry

@Kent: You Only Live Once

@Xuv: ORZ doesn't really work though because of the bubble on the capital R. If something's a great head on the floor moment people use OTL but if it's just a little derp they use orz

my mum didn't even know what 囧 was so I am thinking it is a relatively new character that people now use as an emoticon.

At one point I had to invent one for a friend who used to to make terrible jokes: LISOM. Laughing in spite of myself.

囧's been around for a while, but it's only in recent years (2007 according to Wiki in English and 2008 according to Wiki in Chinese...wth?) that people have started using it as an emoticon.

The original meaning is something along the lines of 'brightness'...like describing the light coming through a window.

What? The meaning of jiong is... so different. XD lol.

Yeah. I think it might have some relation to the '炯炯有神' phrase, the character looks kind of similar...

OTL I didn't have a problem with. THe first time I had seen it was at work through our office chat program and it just made perfect sense in context.

SMH I was confused with for a while. Some people told me it was Shake My Head and others told me it was So Much Hate. I've found that those two interpretations can be used simultaneously in most cases.

The one that I felt most stupid for not getting right away was DTMS.

...What's DTMS stand for?

I always thought SMH was shake my head.

FTW took me a while because I always thought it was fuck the world because that's how my friend used it. Turns out it's for the win ha.

@Anta: Does that make sense, I think

...OH. I rarely ever use that phrase so I guess I wouldn't have known.

And I still have no idea where the phrase 'for the win' came from in the first place...and 'pwn', though I think I read somewhere that that was from Arnold Swartzeneggar from one of the Terminator movies?

pwn is a typo of own for sure... and it sorta stuck...

Iku and Seito had to educate me about some text emotes that they habitually use, because I couldn't figure them out

Stuff like =w=b

I'm like, "I have no idea what that's supposed to be"

Then there's the mhmm thing that a LOT of people "say". That leaves me clueless as to whether they are thinking what I'm saying is cool or stupid.