I'm trying to re-edit my Lois & Clark/Batman crossover story of many years (in fact some of you may know it...ADITLOM), and I want to make sure it's as accurate as possible.

Back in 1994, do you think people were using acroynms such as "OMG" "LOL," "<G>," etc? I know the internet/email was around, but since I didn't get onto the information superhighway until 1997, I wasn't quite sure how things were done back then. Did people even know about this kind of shorthand?

Any help is appreciated.

Alexis ` aka: Lois "Alexis" Lane of FFS fame!

Oooh!! Lois & Clark/Batman crossover - really??? Weeee!!!!

I used BBS systems back in 1994 and we were barely even starting to use smileys in our messages at the time - we definitely weren't usng acronyms yet. At least not in any bulletin board or chatroom I was ever in at the time. I got on the internet per se in the fall of 1995. The first time I ever saw anything like "LOL" show up (and I had to ask because it meant nothing to me) was the first time I used IRC, sometime in the summer of 1996.

Mind you, I'm only one person and it could be simply because it wasn't hip with the people I used to hang out with at the time - I'd probably wait for a couple more people to swing by and answer before making a decision.

I don't think acronyms were being used back in 1994. If they were, they would be used and recognized by a select few. Possibly by someone like Jimmy Olsen, the hacker, but not by anyone else at the Daily Planet. I think it would be okay to suppose that Batman was aware of the acronyms, since he makes it his business to know everything, and he would have the best computer that money could buy in his Batcave. But that still doesn't necessarily mean that the acronyms had even been invented yet. And what was the internet like in those days? Honestly people didn't exactly chat with each other via computers back then!

My guess is that the acronyms didn't exist. Smileys existed, but they were not widely used. And the most likely reason why they existed in the world of computers was that smileys were popular in the real world at that time.

Ann

I can't say anything about 94, since I didn't get online until late 95, but I can tell you they were very much in use by then. I remember having contests in a chat room who could make the longest rotfl acronym. I can't remember using smilies so much, but the smiley did just turn 25, so they were in use somewhere.

EDIT: Oh, wow, check this out. A newsgroup posting from 1990 that lists acronyms and smilies. There you go!

Oh yes we did! In fact I had a speedy 1200B modem, no joke it was state of the art and I was delighted with it, in the early 1990s.

But when I went into the Compuserve chat rooms I always signed on using the lower priced 300B lines since it was already slowed by our typing speed.

(BTW 56k modems, those slow dial up lines than nobody uses any more are 56,000B modems!)

56K modems, Patrick? I'll have you know that I still have one mounted in my 2001 model HP computer! And that I just switched to broadband within the past two months!

Wait a minute, that might not be the smartest thing I've ever posted....

Wow, so all those hours I spent on IRC starting in 1995 never happened? Must have eaten one of those funny mushrooms and dreamed a decade of my life.

Considering it was the second part of the L&C fandom I got involved with -- the first being reading fanfic (back when you sent a text command request to majordomo and had the bot email you the stories, LOL) -- I can most emphatically say that people were indeed chatting via computer in the mid-90's. I got online in the summer of 1995, and the chat rooms (both AOL and IRC) were well established by that time.

And while we may not have used all the acronyms -- I don't remember OMG being used until later, for example -- things like *g*, *vbg*, LOL, ROTFL, : ) , ; ) , and the like were commonly used. In fact, I remember someone using the term *beg* in response to my first fanfic, and I couldn't figured out what they were begging me to do.

Thanks for correcting me!

Ann

I forgot to bring this up earlier, but people have been chatting online since the early-to-mid-80's with Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). Something like what this board is based on!

Man...I didn't even know the internet existed in the early 90s (junior high). I can't remember when I first used it...in high school and it was so slow that I didn't care for it.

However, I do remember using and acroynms in my grade 10 computer class (93/92). Not on the internet though.

I know it wasn't popular at the company I work for now in the mid 90s.

Hm... this may be a rather dumb question, but what is *g*? I always see it, but it's kind of an odd subject to bring up.

*g* and <g> mean grin, <vbg> means very big grin. Also used is <sg>, smug grin.

Julie

For a community that's been asked such things as 'What's the weight of a Siberian tiger?", no subject is too odd to bring up, Laura. <g>

There are endless variations of grins, it seems, but once you know that <g> is grin, you can probably work out what most of them are. And it probably doesn't matter too much if you get it wrong either.

I remember, back when I first got online, I was absolutely mystified by people putting ; ) and : ) in feedback posts on my stories. I had to email someone and ask what the heck those meant.

LabRat

Also, don't forget the <eg> for evil grin.

Saskia

Ahh! It all makes sense now. Thank you


... *g*

<eg>, can also mean enormous grin.

And btw, thanks for all of the feedback, I'm getting a good feeling on how I should edit this story.