* Acronyms and Slang Frequently Used on the Forum *

[Jeb-NY]

Standard Acronyms You May Find on the Forum

This list will only grow if you submit acronyms you use or that need defining. I will up date this message, adding new acronyms as they are submitted to the list. It is always better to use the full words, but we know how much people like to type. A link at the bottom is supplied for stock and mutual fund symbols.

We don’t need all possible abbreviations just the ones used commonly on the forum. Two links at the bottom of the list will lead you to a bunch of standard web slang.

If you see mistakes or if there are alternative meaning please submit those to. I don't know much so I don't mind people telling me what I don't know.

AFAIK - As Far As I Know
AFU - Acronyms Frequently Used
Avacado - Swahili for...see here
BB - Big Brother
BFO - Blinding Flash of the Obvious
BIL - Brother In-Law
BOHICA- Bend over, Here it Comes Again
BTW - By The Way
CFP - Certified Financial Planner
CLU - Chartered Life Underwriter
ChFC - Chartered Financial Consultant
CHP - Cocktail Hour Post
C Fund - Common Stock Index (S&P 500)
CC - Credit Card
DB - Defined Benefit
DC - Defined Contribution
DCA - Dollar Cost Averaging
DCM - Defenders of the Conventional Methology or Dont Care Much
DE - Differential Equations
DFA - Dimensional Fund Advisors
DH - Darling Husband (Hubby) is the nice version or D*** Husband
DH - vanguard DieHards, see diehards.org
DR - Downside Risk
DRIP - Dividend Reinvestment Plan
DW - Darling Wife is the nice version or D*** Wife
Dryer Sheets - See here and here
EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization
EM - Emerging Markets
EMH - Efficient Market Hypothesis
EMT - Efficient Market Theory
ER - Early Retirement
ER - Expense Ratio
ETF - Exchange Traded Funds
F Fund - Fixed Income Index
FA - Financial Advisor
FI - Financially Independent
Fido - Fidelity
FIL - Father In-Law
FIRE - F*** It, Retire Early - T-bone Al's alternative
FIRE - Financially Independent Retired Early
FT - Full Time
FUBAR - Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (or words to that effect)
FWIW - For What It's Worth
G Fund - Government securities
Harvest Gold - Swahili for...see here (small print)
HOTs - Higher Order Terms
I Fund - International Index
IIRC - If I Remember Correctly
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
IOW - In other words
L Fund - Lifecycle funds (2040, 2030, 2020, 2010, Income)
LBOM - Living Below/Beneath Our Means
LBYM - Living Below/Beneath Your Means
LC - Large Cap stocks
LG - Largecap Growth stocks
LV - Largecap Value stocks
M* - Morningstar
MENSA - Making Elucidating Nonsense Sound Authentic
MF - Mutual Fund
MIL - Mother In-Law
MM - Money Market
NAV - Net Asset Value
nm - Never Mind
NW - Net Worth
NYDB - None of Your Damn Business
PDEs - Partial differential equations
PITA - Pain In The A$$
PM - Precious Metals, often stocks instead of physical
POV - Point Of View
PT - perpetual travel; perpetual traveler
PTJ - Part Time Job (normally considered a derogatory comment on this board)
RE - Real Estate
RE - Retired Early
REHP - Retire Early Home Page
ROFLMAO - Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My A$$ Off
ROR - Rate of return
S Fund - Small Capitalization Stock Index
SC - Small Cap stocks
SD - Standard Deviation
SG - Smallcap Growth stocks
SIL - Sister In-Law
SNAFU - Situation Normal, All 'Fouled' Up
SV - Smallcap Value stocks
SWR - Safe Withdrawal Rate
TIPS - Treasury Inflation Protected Securities
TLA - Three Letter Acronym
TSP - Thrift Savings Plan (The 401K-like plan for the federal government and the military)
USD - US Dollar
VA - Variable Annuities
VG - Vanguard
YDBIYDB - Your Damn Business Is Your Damn Business
YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary
YTD - Year To Date

Some standard investment acronyms:
http://www.investopedia.com/categories/acronyms.asp
Link to a lot of standard net slang:
http://members.aol.com/nigthomas/alphabet.txt
If you think it might be a stock or fund symbol try:
http://finance.yahoo.com/

If you have a suggestion for a better format let me know.

Thanks for all the contributions.

Jeb
ER Forum "Acronymonialist"

[justin]

VG - Vanguard
Fido - Fidelity

AFAIK - As far as I know

IOW - In other words

ER - can also mean expense ratio (instead of early retirement)

PT - perpetual travel; perpetual traveler

As an added tip - sometimes the generic acronyms can be explained if you google <acronym> aol speak.

[HFWR]

DCA - dollar cost averaging
DRIP - dividend reinvestment plan
LBYM - living below/beneath your means
ROFLMAO - rolling on the floor, laughing my a$$ off
EBITDA - earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization

[cute fuzzy bunny]

JGTJA

[REWahoo]

NYDB - None of your damn business
YDBIYDB - Your damn business is your damn business
MENSA - Making elucidating nonsense sound authentic

[haha]

Originally Posted by Jeb-NY

Standard Acronyms You May Fine on the Forum

MF - Mutual Fund
Jeb
ER Forum "Acronymonialist"

Those angry looking guys were calling me a "Mutual Fund?" Wow, who'da thunkit?

Ha

[lazyday]

DH: secondary meaning: vanguard DieHards, see diehards.org

ER: IMO, the main meaning is expense ratio, but no biggie which is listed first.

RE: secondary meaning: real estate.

There's lots of generic acronym lists on the net, for things like IMO, WTF, etc.
I suppose to make life easier, Jeb, you could either copy & paste the generic acronyms into your list, or only include specialized acronyms in your list and put a link up for the generic ones.
Example list: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_slang

Also, for 3 letter or 5 letter acronyms not in the list, we could point people directly to try a website like http://finance.yahoo.com/ to see if it is a stock or mutual fund symbol. (I don't mean anything fancy, just giving a simple link like above for getting quotes.)

[dory36]

TLA - Three Letter Acronym
FWIW - For what it's worth
FIGMO - old Army term: F____ it, got my orders (i.e., it's too late for you to mess with me)
FUBAR - Fouled up beyond all recognition (or words to that effect)
BFO - Blinding Flash of the Obvious

[MRGALT2U]

Originally Posted by dory36

TLA - Three Letter Acronym
FWIW - For what it's worth
FIGMO - old Army term: F____ it, got my orders (i.e., it's too late for you to mess with me)
FUBAR - Fouled up beyond all recognition (or words to that effect)
BFO - Blinding Flash of the Obvious

Are we going to include STFU?

JG

[Jeb-NY]

I appreciate all the contributions, but some seem beyond what is used on the forum.

If you see abbreviations definitions being asked for please define them if you know. I'm just the scribe at this time, I don't know most of these.

Jeb

[Martha]

I always liked T-bone Al's alternative for FIRE: F*** It, Retire Early.

NAV as in net asset value, is often used here.

M* for Morningstar

[lazyday]

EM - Emerging Markets
EMH - Efficient Market Hypothesis
SC - SmallCap stocks
SG - Smallcap Growth stocks
SV - Smallcap Value stocks
LC - LargeCap stocks
LG - Largecap Growth stocks
LV - Largecap Value stocks
PM - Precious Metals, often stocks instead of physical

Here's a list of investment acronyms: http://www.investopedia.com/categories/acronyms.asp
I suppose you could link a list like that instead of having to define things like TIPS and REIT, which are really basic. And to cover infequently used things like ROI. (Unlike Martha's NAV which is more common on this board.)
Just an idea; I don't think you should feel obligated to take any suggestions, unless you're being paid.

[lazyday]

The MENSA entry in the list is funny, but may actually misinform some people...here's what Mensa really means:

The word "Mensa" means "table" in Latin. The name stands for a round-table society, where race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background are irrelevant.

http://www.mensa.org/index0.php?page=10

As I see it, Mensa is a social club for the somewhat intelligent. Many, but not all, members are social misfits. A few have emotional intelligence quotients below 70. But it is a fun group if you like to hang around fairly smart people. Including a few who are truly brilliant.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by lazyday

The MENSA entry in the list is funny, but may actually misinform some people...here's what Mensa really means:
http://www.mensa.org/index0.php?page=10

As I see it, Mensa is a social club for the somewhat intelligent. Many, but not all, members are social misfits. A few have emotional intelligence quotients below 70. But it is a fun group if you like to hang around fairly smart people. Including a few who are truly brilliant.

Based on the history of this forum, I think my definition is more accurate.

[Sheryl]

Here's one I don't know, from a post by Uncle Mick today:


"At 12 years into ER - more concerned with asset allocation to get my Norwegian widow cut along with proper asset balance to run the slot between reasonible inflation effects and damping SD enough so I don't scare myself enough to pee my pants - 2002 dip was thus normal market fluctuation."

SD?*

[haha]

Originally Posted by Sheryl

SD?*

Standard Deviation.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Standard Deviation

Funny, my posts are doing weird things. I posted the above when no further posts showed in the thread, and in another thread I posted a response to someone and noticed later that my post appeared above theirs in the thread...

[justin]

Could be Slick Deals.

www.slickdeals.net

[Martha]

Or Laurence using SD for San Diego, when I am thinking "South Dakota?"

[haha]

Hey Martha- how about a trip report. Where are you? Are you having fun?

Is Greg surviving without you?

Ha