We use the Internet for many things: business, shopping, writing letters, talking to people, finding information, and so on. In recent years, a new kind of English has grown on the Internet. There's no real word for it yet, so we'll call it e-talk. People don't like typing too much. To save time, they turn phrases (短语) into a few letters called acronyms(首字母缩略词). Acronyms are often used in chat rooms.
Some of them are:
BTW(by the way) BRB (be right back)
LOL (laughing out loud) IMO (in my opinion)
People also use many abbreviations. They are shortened forms of words. Some common abbreviations are:
info (information) puter (computer) pic (picture) sec (second)
We usually don’t see people when we communicate on the Net, so people have new ways to show feelings. Most people use their keyboards to draw “feeling”, such as:
: ) (happy) :-( (sad) ; : P (joking) : O (surprised)
These days, many forums have picture feelings. For example:
happy 
sad 
angry 
cool 
There are even whole new words, like ‘newbie’ (someone who is new on a chat board or forum). When you write something bad about someone else, it’s called ‘flaming’ the person.
It takes time to get used to e-talk. Also, different groups in the Net have their own special ways of communicating. Newbies sometimes have to ask other people what they mean. As the Internet grows, e-talk will continue to grow and change.
