Texting Dictionary - Text Symbols

With the popularity and rise in real-time text-based communications, such as instant messaging, e-mail, Internet and online gaming services, chat rooms, discussion boards and mobile phone text messaging (SMS), came the emergence of a new language tailored to the immediacy and compactness of these new communication media. If you have ever received an instant message or text message that seemed to be written in a foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text chat lingo by providing the definitions to more than 1,100 chat abbreviations. 

While it does seem amazing that there are more than 1,000 text messaging abbreviations, it is important to remember that different chat abbreviations are used by different groups of people when communicating online. Some of the following chat abbreviations may be familiar to you, while others may be foreign because they are used by a group of people with different online interests and hobbies than your own. For example, people playing online games are likely to use chat abbreviations that are different than those used by teenagers texting on their cell phone or abbreviations used by someone updating a financial blog.