email conventions

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

LJT777 at AOL.COM writes:

>>>
My sense is that using the smiling face to indicate humor predates the
"emoticon" by quite some time.   At least I have used it in lieu of something
lame like "ha ha" for a number of years.
I recently found myself saying BRB to someone who is also very familiar with
internet jargon, abbreviations, etc.   As I said it, we looked at each other
and grimaced!
<<<

What's BRB?

I suspect that a lot of these are specific to some subcultures of the 'Net
culture... although, for obvious reasons, I can't easily come up with a list of
netisms that are used in contexts (newsgroups, lists; chats and IRC channels, if
I used any, which I don't; etc.) that I frequent but not in others.

Except for one likely candidate: ttto, "to the tune of", is widely used on
rec.music.filk, which is devoted to the music of the sf/fantasy fan community,
in which many of the songs we write [though by no means all] either are parodies
of other songs or simply recycle other songs' music.

-- Mark