Twitter Acronyms and Abbreviations

Many of the acronyms you’ll find being used on Twitter have a basis in the last decade of digital communication (such as texting, email & IM). Much like the early days of texting on mobile phones where character count was a precious commodity you may actually find much of what’s outlined below familiar.

Only maybe a handful are directly related to how Twitter functions and the rest are common abbreviations.

@ – Reply to [username]. @ can also be used expressing ‘at,’ as in location.
AFAIK – As Far As I Know
b/c – because
BBL – Be Back Later
BFN – Bye For Now
BR – Best Regards
BRB – Be Right Back
BTW – By The Way
BWN – Between
DM – Direct Message. DMs are private messages to a users/Twitter’s email
DNFTT – Do not feed the trolls
FB – Facebook
FF/FollowFriday – #FF for #FollowFriday use to recommend to your users one of the people you follow.
FTF – Face to Face. FTF or F2F refers to an actual meeting in person.
FTL – For The Loss
FTW – For The Win
FUBAR – F@#&d up beyond all reason OR
FUBAR – F@#&ed up beyond all recognition OR
FUBAR – F@#&ed up beyond all repair
FWIW – For What It’s Worth
FYI – For Your Information
gr8 – great
gtg – Got To GO
HT – Hat Tip is used as an acknowledgment or thank the person who sent the original tweet. HT @username
HTH – Hope It Helps
IM – Instant Message
IMHO – In My Honest/Humble Opinion
IMO – In My Opinion
IMX – In my experience
IOW – In other words
IRL – In Real Life
J/K – Just Kidding
JSYK – Just so you know
JV – Joint Venture
LI – Often used to refer to LinkedIn
LMAO – Laugh(ing) my Ass off
LMK – Let Me Know
LOL – Laugh(ing) Out Loud
MT – Modified Tweet
NB – “Nota Bene”, take note
NP – No Problem
nsfw – Not Safe For Work. To warn readers about links and content that could cause trouble if viewed at work.
OH – Overheard. ‘OH’ is frequently used at conferences or while traveling.
OMFG – Oh My F@#&ing God
OMG – Oh My God / Oh My Gosh
Plz or Pls – Please
PPL or Peeps – People
PRT – Partial Retweet / Please Retweet
RE – Reply to
RR – Re-run
RT – Retweet e.g. RT @theOneTrueBaron: #LinkedIn is Netscape of this decade. IPO window blown wide open. https://bit.ly/ld2hL9
RTF – Read The FAQ (It is a text file format also), people will aslo use RTFF as an alternative
RTFM – Read The F-ing Manual
RTQ – Read or Retweet The Question
SNAFU – Situation Normal All F@#&ed Up
STFW – Searching the F@#&ing Web
TMB – Tweet Me Back
TMI – Too Much Information
TMP – Tweet Me Back
TTYL – Talk To You Later
TTYS – Talk To You Soon
Tweeps or Tweeple – Twitter Users
Twistory – it refers to any history of Twitter
Twitterverse – used to designate “Whole community of Twitter”
TY or TU – Thank You
w/o – without
WTF – What The F@#&
YGTR – You Got that right
YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary
YW – You’re Welcome