After spending some time on the World of Warcraft forums (note: This is not a plug for other WoW players to do this--I actually heartily recommend against it. It's usually a total downer but it helps me pass the time when I am waiting for large printouts at work and one thread's worth of reading is usually about as much time as I have.) I have finally figured out some of the acronyms and found some funny kiddie netspeak shortcuts.
FTW drove me nuts for the longest time. I could not, COULD NOT, figure it out from context. I finally availed myself of Google, which informed me that it is most probably "For The Win". As in, "Re-spec to 31 Marksmanship FTW, fellow hunters", or more annoyingly, "Re-roll Mage/Priest/Rogue/Warrior FTW."
Who came up with this "For the Win" nonsense? It's not like it's a common phrase like most of the other internet acronyms. I mean, if someone's driving really slow in front of you, do you roll down your window and shout, "Drive the speed limit at least, for the win!"
Also, the spelling of the already colorfully mispelled "noob" has now morphed to "nub" in most circles. I have not checked to see if has similarly changed outside the WoW forums, but "nub", to anyone who's ever read a Harlequin romance novel, tends to put an altogether different image in my head. And it usually has nothing to do with a lack of experience.
I just saw my favorite one, which I would probably start using if the idea of using aolspeek kiddie shortcut-o-rama didn't make me almost as queasy as the thought of eating before 1:00 p.m. At the end of a post angrily attacking the 'views' of an obvious troll on the hunter forums (which are about 37% troll these days, and I don't mean the Horde race) came the rather delightfully dismissive closing, "kthx", which I think could only have been made better as, "kthxbye" or possibly "kthxby" to get in that all important creative spelling requirement FTW.
Which reminds me, parenthetically, of an atheist friend of mine in college who used to sign off her summer letters to me with "Yours in Christ", which is probably still my most favorite closing, but kthx is coming up fast.
kthx. Kathy<--noob (can't get into the new spelling, even FTW)
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7 comments:
I could have told you ftw, I use it all the time. I think the origin, of all places, is Hollywood Squares, at least, that's the only thing I can think of.
How it entered normal internet parlance, I dunno. IMO. FYI. IRL. OMG. FTW.
"Yours in Christ?" Ewww... it's all bloody and stuffy in there!
FTW? WTF?
w00t. CGTS!!!
Circle gets the square.
the thing that i hated was KK. Then joe picked it up. :(
Ewww... it's all bloody and stuffy in there!
Hah!
FTW? WTF?
See, that's why it kept catching my eye. The first time I saw it I thought it was a typo for WTF. But it didn't make sense in context.
Hollywood Squares, origin of FTW, CGTS, etc.
Ah, goodness. John Davidson's hair strikes again.
I agree completely with kk. Makes them seem like a yippy dog or something. WTF?
When playing online, I specifically try not to add people to my team who use all that crap. Crotchety old bastard, I am...
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