advance_copy. I originally penned this as a 'private' message to you a few minutes ago, but then thought that there's a lesson here that goes two ways, so not being shy by nature decided to make it 'public'.
I didn't realize until after I made my latest post to "bluefish" that I'd forgotten to include you in said apology, but the same sentiments apply. We old "dudes" oft times find ourselves as strangers in a new world, having difficulty reading the road signs on the information superhighway. So it was with me on your post.
As an example, on a different site, about a year and a half ago, I sent off a 'private' msg to a guy who had responded to my post with simply...."FYA". In retrospect this is hilarious, but at the time I was livid. As his post previously appeared to be mocking me (which it wasn't, just done in sarcasm) I was positive that FYA meant "F__k You A__hole" and I used some minor profile data he'd posted to start using switch board.com and other databases to locate him. Soon, I was relatively certain I had the right guy, because he had inserted (foolishly) his real last name into his made-up user name so that every other letter, noted capitalized, when strung together spelled his REAL last name. I then sent him a private message threatening to meet him ANY TIME and ANY PLACE in (and inserted his hometown here).
HE IMMEDIATELY got back to me to explain that "FYA" actually meant "For Your Amusement" referencing his sarcastic post and to say I was left unusually speechless is an understatement. I had learned just how dangerous a rush of s__t to the brain can be. HA! It took me about 15 minutes to figure out an apologetic response, but it was a lesson learned. I RARELY use abbreviations as I've got plenty of time!!! And now I endeavor to step back and try to read between the lines a bit, before the rush takes place...HA! A good practice considering that I'm an (oops!) RKBA guy!
Heh heh.. BTW ["By The Way"], I'm not as young as my post might have implied. The other day, I was at a friends house and was watching his son "chat" via instant messenger with a friend. I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. There were so many abbreviations and strange words and phrases that I thought they were speaking a different language.
I thought I was pretty up-to-speed. I even communicate with most of my clients by instant messenger, bypassing email altogether, using a lot of abbreviations at that.
Watching this kid made me realize that I'm not the info-superhighway wiz that I thought I was!