There are so many words we use on an everyday basis but don’t even know their history. Here are a few short forms that we use but have no clue what they actually stand for. Some of them have entered our life in the form of internet slang while the others through books and newspapers. We explain what they actually stand for because you deserve to know!
1. OK
Have you always thought OK was a word in itself? Think again! OK actually stands for Oll Korrect, a term that achieved prominence in the 1840s during the United States Presidential Elections. Pretty cool, huh?
2. RSVP
We’ve all at one point or other RSVP-ed an invitation. RSVP is the abbreviation for the French phrase – Répondez s’il vous plaît – meaning ‘please respond’. Isn’t it funny how languages mingle with each other and we don’t even realise?
3. IMO/ IMHO
Often used as a slang, this stands for ‘In My Opinion/ In My Humble Opinion’. On the internet when we are already running short of space to put our words, slangs like these really sum up the beginning to any argument in just 3-4 characters!
4. WiFi
Yes, our beloved WiFi also has a full form that you no clue about. It stands for ‘Wireless Fidelity’. We might remember reading about it in school but we never use the full form anymore, do we? In our defence, it would sound a little weird to ask people if we can get the password to their wireless fidelity, eh?
5. PDF
We PDF this and PDF that. In fact, almost all our documents now exist in the PDF format, but what does it stand for? PDF stands for Portable Document Format… So simple, right?
6. JSYK
Using FYI when you come down on someone with full force and facts is kinda old-school now. Yup, JSYK or ‘Just So You Know’ is the new FYI and the internet is loving it!
7. NSFW
This one’s pretty common but in case you had no clue what those articles and videos with NSFW written meant, it stands for ‘Not Safe For Work’ – i.e, everything that is a vulgar or violent in nature and would prove to be a bit hazardous if someone were to see it on your computer screen.
8. USB
The sacred place where all our movies and TV shows find their place actually stands for ‘Universal Serial Bus’. It defines the connection and communication between a computer and electronic device, among other things.
9. GIF
The GIFs that often bring laughter and a ray of sunshine into our lives also have a full form that you probably never knew about. GIF a.k.a ‘Graphics Interchange Format’ have helped us quite a bit to express our emotions so we might as well know a bit about them, don’t you think?
10. IDGAF
For all those days when you just can’t even bother, IDGAF is your go-to word. It stands for ‘I Don’t Give A F*ck’ which is quite self-explanatory.
11. NASA
As kids, we used to dream of travelling in space through NASA and most of us even learnt the full form in our G.K. classes but do you remember it now? No? NASA stands for ‘National Aeronautics and Space Administration’. Now go back to those good ol’ days of wishing you could get in a rocket and fly away.
12. ATM
The one place we all hold close to our hearts (especially post the demonetization era). Unlike the popular slang word, ATM does not stand for ‘At The Moment’. It actually stands for ‘Automated Teller Machine’.
13. BPO
Remember the wave of all youngsters doing late night shifts at BPOs? It was quite the cool thing to do at a point in our lives. Those who did work at BPOs might know what it stands for but for all of us who didn’t, BPO stands for ‘Business Process Outsourcing’. All the organisations that outsource the people or machinery involved in a business process for the benefit of the company are called BPOs.
14. FTFY
FTFY a.k.a ‘Fixed That For You’ is an internet slang short form often used when, well, you fix something for somebody whether in the real or the virtual world.
15. P.S.
Have you ever seen the letters ‘P.S.’ scribbled at the end of a letter or a note followed by something the writer missed out on previously? Well, P.S. stands for ‘Post Scriptum’ and even though it’s a Latin phrase, we use it often to specify something after the signature in a letter or note or even e-mail these days.
16. IRL
IRL is the short form for ‘In Real Life’ mainly used in the virtual world to specify something that would be different in real life.
17. SCUBA
Don’t we all want to go underwater and feel the sea world by scuba diving? It always seems fascinating, doesn’t it? Well, the word SCUBA itself stands for something – ‘Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus’ – we bet you had no clue about this one!
