In a chat room conversation, veteran chat participants use acronyms in place of certain phrases. These acronyms can either be all upper-case or all lower-case letters.
Here are some to get you started:
This Means
{{name}} Hugs
<BEG> Big evil grin
<BG> Big grin
<EG> Evil grin
<G> Grin
<VEG> Very evil grin
<WEG> Wicked evil grin
A/S/L Age/Sex/Location
AFK Away from keyboard
B Back
B/F Boyfriend
BBL Be back later
BRB Be right back
BTW By the way
CU See you
CYa See you
FCOL For crying out loud
FWIW For what it's worth
G/F Girlfriend
GMTA Great minds think alike
GTP Got to pee
Heehee Giggle
HNG Horny net geek
IM Instant messenger
IMHO In my humble opinion
L8R Later
LMAO Laughing my ass off
LOL Laugh out loud
Newbie New to chat room
OIC Oh, I see
OMG Oh my goodness
OO Over and out
PLS Please
PPL People
ROFL Rolling on the floor laughing
ROFLMAO Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off
TGIF Thank goodness it's Friday
TMI Too much information
TTFN Ta ta for now
TTYL Talk to you later
TY Thank you
TYVM Thank you very much
WB Welcome back
WTG Way to go!
YVW You're very welcome
YW You're welcome

Now for my question......I sent an email with some acronyms mentioned that I had never heard or seen before. Can someone help me out with them?

CTFU
RME
QQn @

P.S. I am thinking CTFU might mean "computer totally f---d up".......which could certainly describe my computer most days.

Oh, ((((((((((((LadyBeth))))))))))))!

I was going to put a thread in here like this. We had a chat not long ago, in our community, and only those experienced chatters knew the acronyms. I must say, it made it very difficult for those who didn't know them. And very difficult not using them when I chatted!

I wish I had an answer for the three you posted, but I have never seen those before.

For RME,
Acronym Finder gives:
Radiation Monitoring Equipment (Space Shuttle)
Reduced Matrix Equation(s)
Relay Mirror Experiment
Resonant Mode Expansion
Responsible Maintainability Engineers
but I'd guess none is the meaning intended. The Acronym Database only shows it as part of a larger acronym. Both show no results for CTFU.

QQn @ I've never come across, but Qqn is a French abbreviation (not an acronym) for quelqu'un -- "someone, anyone".

I accept that there is need for acronyms when using a mobile 'phone to send a text message, since anything that will help reduce the multiple key strokes on the miniscule keyboard must be a good thing.

I do not believe that they are important when using boards such as this. Indeed, I tend to dislike the shortcuts commonly used: the eschewing of capital letters and apostrophes being two of my special "betes noir".

Forgive me, then, if I choose to say, "thank you", rather than TY!

Incidentally, did you know that "TTFN" far from being a new acronym is actually one of the world's oldest having first become popular in the UK during the Second World War?

Richard English

And Richard, I'm sure I drove you nuts in our chat then! Next time, dear, I will do my best to forget it's a chat, and make it more like a post, complete with capitalization and punctuation.

otherwise youd see this an go nutz lmao

Sorry! I couldn't resist.

Thanks, Lady Beth, for those acronyms. I feel a bit like Richard about their use, though I receive them all the time and want to know what the writer means. I received "<G>" in an e-mail and thought it was some big insult. After asking several people, I finally found that it was a benign "grin".

I always find that it takes much longer for me to type in this strange modern fashion than it does to type properly. My fingers automatically hit the shift key at the start of sentences and for the word "I" and I have to make a deliberate effort not to do it.
As for the use of the acronyms I find that if I want to use them I puzzle over what they need to be for longer than it takes to type the whole phrase.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Quote: "OMG Oh my goodness"

I always read it as "Oh my God!"

Richard, although acronyms are needed in the fast-paced conversation of an active chat-room, I fully agree with you that they should generally not be used as part of general conversation on a board. On a board, they serve mainly as an insider's argot that discourages new posters not familiar with with them.

That of course in no way diminishes Lady Beth's post, for acronyms are a fascinating subject. In a way, in chat we see the development of a specialized "language" to suit the needs of the medium -- much as a terse style used to be used in telegrams.

As I understand it, though, chat room acronyms are finding their way into school papers written by students who see them as acceptable communication. This obviously presents a problem.

While I am neither a formal student nor a chat room junkie at the moment, I still see evidence of this unfortunate trend in everyday life particularly when dealing with young people who, when I say anything, roll their eyes as if I'm as outdated as a horse & buggy. They're probably right, of course, but that's beside the point.

In addition to the chat acronyms being found elsewhere, I have a collegue who constantly sends emails and messages with smileys attached.

"The menu will be changed today to peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of the roast beef as previously stated. :-)"

I find this extremely juvenile in a business setting. (But not here, of course )