Hack 6 Common Terms, Abbreviations, and Phrases 
Once you get into IRC, you need to understand
the barrage of abbreviations and phrases that are commonly
used.
People will do
anything to be lazy—especially where typing is concerned.
Anyone who uses IRC will come across abbreviations and certain jargon
that will stump them initially. Do not look like a fool by asking
unless you absolutely must!
2.3.1 Noun-Verb Duality
One peculiarity you may notice is that IRC
commands are often treated as both verbs
and nouns. You can refer to your IRC client documentation for
additional commands, but here are some examples:
- op
-
n. A person in a channel who has the
+o flag in a channel. Usually has the
@ prefix in the username.
v. The act of setting mode
+o. Used with omitted subject
"me" as a request.
<lamer> op
/mode #
channel
+o lamer
* idiot sets mode +o lamer
- oper
-
n. A person who has been granted special
privileges on the IRC server.
<w8> TsTech is an oper, right?
v. To identify to an IRC server with an
administrator login and password, for example.
/oper User Password
- msg
(short for privmsg)
-
n. A private message to a user.
[lamer(idiot@some-host.com)] you're cool
v. To send someone a private message.
/msg lamer I know am.
2.3.2 Leet Speak
lE3+ $Pe@K IS EVErywh3rE, 4nd iT'$ nO+ C0n51$t3nt.
l33t $pEAK 15 3V3rYWH3RE, @nd 1+'5 n0T c0n515TeNt.
Le3T $P3aK 15 EVERYwh3RE, 4Nd iT'5 No+ c0N$15+EnT.
l3eT 5p34K i5 Ev3rYWH3R3, 4nD 1T's n0+ C0ns15+3N+.
L33T $P3@k 15 EVerYWH3R3, @ND 1+'5 N0+ cONS15+3N+.
"Leet"
(from "elite")
speak is novelty English commonly used on IRC, instant
messaging, and gaming. The use of leet speak is considered childish;
however, it may also be used with sarcasm, so don't
expect to be taken too seriously if you choose to use it.
With practice, you'll be able to read the preceding
examples almost as quickly as normal text. Leet speak is quite often
derived by replacing letters with numbers that look similar; for
example, o could be replaced by
0 and e could be replaced
by 3, which looks like a reversed
E. Leet speak is not consistent, so you may even
see an o being replaced by parentheses or an
m being replaced by |\/|.
2.3.3 Correction Syntax
After a user finds an error that she made on
the previous line, she may try to correct the mistake. Many methods
exist for delimiting corrections. The most common is the
asterisk method, which is used like
so:
<Sc00ter> I want a glass of lemonaid.
<Sc00ter> *lemonade.
It doesn't matter if the asterisk is placed at the
beginning or the end of the correction.
"*lemonade" and
"lemonade*" are both commonly used
asterisk correction statements.
Another popular way of correcting a mistake is the
"s-slash"
method. Addicts of the Perl programming language commonly use this.
It works like this:
<Marcel> My bolonie sandwich fell on the floor :(
<Marcel> s/bolonie/bologna
s/mistake/correction is
how it's done. This is derived from the
search-and-replace regular expression syntax found in Perl code. Its
meaning is mostly esoteric, but people can figure out
"mistake" slash
"correction" easily enough for it
to work.
2.3.4 Phonetics and Keyboard Layouts
Many mistakes and
typos can be interpreted. Spelling
"ever" as
"evar" is an obvious mishap, but
"gppf"
("food") isn't so
easy to detect. If you are chatting with an English speaker, keep in
mind the standard QWERTY keyboard layout when encountering a typo. It
is better to think than to ask for clarification. In most cases,
people answer their own question by the time they press Return to
send the question, for example:
<BeetleJuice> I just saw that AYBABTU animation for the 167th time!
<Jquest> ?
<Jquest> Oh! I get it.
<Jquest> All your base are belong to us.
...
<Hungary> AFK! wife brought gppf
* Hungary is away
<Turkey> gppf?
<Boliver> Turkey: He means "food"
—Nicholas Copeland
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