Loose Translation

So, I’ve been copping some grief for the nature of my status updates on Facebook (email me for deets if you want to add me).
Translations have been required more than once so I thought it politic
to post a glossary of symbols and TLAs* you may notice in my Status
Updates (or in the twitter column to your right)… oh, and while we’re on the subject my status updates are fed
directly from twitter. So most of the quizzical looks I get are because
some twitterism or other has crept in…

Twitterisms – http://www.twitter.com

For the record twitter is the current buzz in social networking.
basically a site built on people’s short status update like messages
colloquially known as tweets.

Tweet – a twitter message
Tweeps – your twitter friends contraction of twitter peeps.
Twitterverse – the Twitter universe
Tweeple – twitter people less personal than tweeps.
Twit – singular twitter user
Twas – former twitter user (i made this one up, but I like it the best)

Twitter lingo in the context of tweets (and by extension fb status updates) may come out looking like this…
@weirdname. In twitter the @ symbol is universally used to reply, and
thereby create a link back to the person you’re mentioning.
#followfriday or any other #thing. the hash tags the tweet so it’s
searchable and other people can follow along. It also links back to a
search page of other #hashtags
RT is to ‘re-tweet’ it’s a copy of someone’s tweet and an effort to
spread the word via your own network and hopefully the networks of your
followers

Some of the geek speak universally recognized in the circles I move in in the www may also creep into my status updates.

FTW – For the Win. Expression of joy, happiness or general all round good cheer and glee.
WTF – What the #@%% – well, you get the idea, basically the opposite of the above.
O_o – expression of confusion, weirded out etc.
OMG – Oh.My.Goodness ;)
WTH – What the Heck
BTW – By The Way

Full of Win – great, awesome, fabulous,
Fail – well, kind of speaks for itself but has become a noun as well as a verb.
Epic Fail – Proportionately huge fail.
Great Big Bucket of Fail – instant death, basically.
Fail Whale – is a twitter thing actually, speaks of the image that appears when twitter is down http://images.google.com/images?hl=EN&q=fail+whale&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2 has also become a noun in many geek circles.

I’ll add to these if I find other translations required, or you could contribute below if you feel so inclined!!

*Three Letter Acronyms