Gale Acronyms

This is not a collection of terms having to do with the Gale system itself, nor is it a guide to technical jargon (many excellent acronym dictionaries exist for the purpose). Rather, it is a partial list of some of the "social" acronyms in current use by the public Gale community in chat. Most of these are borrowed from the 'net as a whole; a few are unique to Gale, or borrowed from more obscure subcultures.

This list is presented as a guide for newbies. It is not meant as an authoritative definition of terms or usage guide. Send me e-mail if you have any suggestions or corrections.

"What they said", usually followed by a username. The implication is that the poster's content has just been scooped by someone else. Compare W?S.

As Far As I Can Tell

Automatic Key Distribution, the system Gale uses to propagate user's keys, and a notoriously flaky part of the current Gale architecture.

All Things Considered

And Told the Entire Office About It

Bastard Operator From Hell [IRC]

Binary Order of Magnitude, that is, a power of 2. (Technical, but it's a Gale-ism, and tends to confuse people.) [sethml@ugcs.caltech.edu]

Back Of The Envelope Calculation

Big Surprise (used sarcastically). See also IMS. [tomy@ugcs.caltech.edu]

Decimal Order of Magnitude, that is, a power of 10. See also BOM. [sethml@ugcs.caltech.edu]

Don't Worry About It [egnor-acronym@ofb.net]

Please expand/expound upon (thing). (As from the SMTP command.) [MIT Zephyr]

Fucked Up Question, usually involving an impossibly contrived hypothetical situation with a few details vastly overspecified, the context or rationale completely unspecified, and an irrational expectation on the questioner's part that someone can make a reasonable answer.

You play Gale Roulette every time you puff something. You lose Gale Roulette when your puff happens to end the conversation and sits there on the screen, looking dumber and dumber every time you see it.

Gale Is My Backing Store. This is used to refer to the habit of puffing trivial notes to yourself so that you can look them up in the logs later.

Grin Out Loud. Wei-Hwa's a freak.

Have A Nice Day. Sarcastic. [USENET alt.fan.warlord]

This term is outmoded and should not be used. Please use "mix" (q.v.) instead.
The unfortunate outcome of confusing simultaneous public and private conversations and posting a private message to a public forum, often with embarrassing results. Often occurs as a result of blind use of shell history mechanisms. So-called because of a certain unfortunate incident involving the eponymous Heath. See also "mix".

(Have I/I Have/You Have) Been Trolled. [USENET]

Hope That Helps. Almost always sarcastic, usually following a very unhelpful, smack comment. [USENET AFW]

Hip Young Urban Knitter. Term of disrespect.

I Have No Point Here, I Just Like Saying ... [MIT Zephyr?]

I Am Not A ..., often "IANAL" (Lawyer), generally used as a disclaimer: "AIUI, you can't sue for court costs in a criminal case, but IANAL".

In Case You Don't/Didn't Know

If I Recall Correctly

In My [[Not So / Very] Humble] Opinion

Imagine My Surprise (used sarcastically). See also BS. [tomy@ugcs.caltech.edu]

[If] You Know What I Mean [And I Think You Do|I'm Not Sure You Do] [tomy@ugcs.caltech.edu?]

An obsolete way to instruct various public archives to skip logging this message. These days, you should crosspuff to the "/nolog" flag category. This sort of thing is typically used when puffing something you wouldn't want coming back to haunt you later, such as admissions of criminal activity or material disseminated in violation of an NDA. [Gale; JJ-232 was heath-acronym@ofb.net's apartment number; we adopted this convention to retroactively correct an accidental public posting of this sensitive data. Heath has since moved.]

(Usually) Living By Committee. Used (typically in the category) when bored people attempt to amuse themselves and others by asking others to make choices for them. For example, "Should I (a) go to bed (b) stay up to watch I Love Lucy reruns?" [clynne@ugcs.caltech.edu]

(Rarely) Long Beach City/Community.

Let's Ignore That Fool Syndrome. Ask Mr. Reese for his proud explanation of coinage. [jtr@ofb.net]

Laughing Out Loud. A lesser version of ROFL. Compare GOL.

[Lonely Single] Nerd Backlash. Refers to frantic attempts to (re-)establish a safely technical conversation topic when everyone is talking about sex, relationships, and similarly scary things. [krevis@ugcs.caltech.edu]

Male Answer Syndrome. The peculiarly male tendency to want to answer every perceived question, whether or not they really know the answer, to the point that they will race other people to get there with the answer first. [?]

"More Information Than I/You/We Needed/Wanted [To Know]". Generally used to refer to unsolicited, highly personal information of a potentially disturbing or offensive nature, generally sexual or bodily in nature. "Jeez, every time she stays over, I have to clean all the sheets afterwards." "Man, that's way MITIN about the two of you." [heath-acronym@ofb.net]

Posting a message to the wrong category, usually by misuse of shell history or Fugu's auto-reply feature. Should be used instead of "Heath" (q.v.). [MIT Zephyr]

Music (On/In My Head) At The Moment

Male Web Search Syndrome. A variant of MAS where the male actually goes out onto the Web in a frantic effort to quickly find an answer to the question posed. [egnor-acronym@ofb.net, derivative of MAS]

Now That You Mention It

Old F*cking News. Something that's already shown up in sufficiently popular media that everyone's already seen it, discussed it, and forgotten about it. [from SomethingAwful?]

Oh, I See (more an onomatopoetic than an acronym).

Out Of oFfice (Out of OFfice? Out Of Facility?). Away from work.

Off The Top Of My Head

Pointy-Haired Boss [Dilbert]

Pardon Me For Jumping In

Painfully Obvious Explanation For The Slow

The act of sending messages to Gale, and the messages so sent, respectively. Named in keeping with the "wind" metaphor, and meant to convey the impression of the large quantities of small messages that typify Gale discussion (and instant-message systems in general).

Rolling On [the] Floor, Laughing [My Ass Off]. Indicates extreme mirth on the puffer's part, even if they're not literally rolling around in their cubicle with detached buttcheeks.

Sucks Dead Donkey Dick. Used to express extreme displeasure with something, usually in a category name. [CMU Zephyr]

To Boldly Go, a play-by-email game a few Gale users participate in.

Total Maximum (Possible/Remembered) Happiness. A quantified measure of the happiest you could ever possibly feel, or the happiest you have ever remembered feeling (respectively). Usually used to set the scale to estimate current happiness; "I'm 75% TMRH today! Aren't I great? Hey, listen to me!" [eggplant@ugcs.caltech.edu]

TOo COmplex TO eXplain.

Voice Crying In the Wilderness. I have no idea why anyone would ever use this. You should ask this dork to find out. [?]

"What ??? Said", with the middle part replaced by the appropriate initial, eg. WDS for "What Dan Said" or W-S for "What -tomy. Said". Used as a sort of "ditto", or a way to acknowledge your failed MAS. [Caltech Zephyr?] More recently, people have adopted "Name[HH:MM]", where "Name" is the sender and "HH:MM" is the timestamp on the message. "I agree with Robert[17:31], except that...". [heath-acronym@ofb.net]

Weapons Research & Development. A favorite subject for discussion by Gale's resident planetary demolition scientist.

You Have Been Trolled [USENET AFW]

You Misspelled .... Almost always used sarcastically, often followed by the likes of HTH or HAND. "Shell bigots should be forced to use 'sh | figlet' as their shell." "YM 'cmd.exe'. HTH." [AFW]

Common Gale Acronyms and Euphemisms