Breakfast Topic: What does that mean?
by David Bowers 
Sep 8th 2007 at 8:00AM
The people who play WoW share a common set of experiences and they naturally tend to talk a lot about these things in shortened language, using terms that most everyone in the game learns pretty quickly. In addition, WoW players are denizens of this larger group of people who just use the Internet and have developed many special ways of talking about that as well.But we often forget that some people coming newly to the game (or even the Internet) may have no idea what we're talking about. Also a lot of us learn the meanings of words like "pwnage" and "noob" without ever actually learning where these words come from.
Are there any specialized words in the WoW community that, to this day, don't make any sense to you? Are there some words that you think you understand a little but not very much? Which words do you understand completely but wonder about how they came to be used this way?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
tripp Sep 8th 2007 8:06AM
I love this game to death but the lingo people use is retarded and takes a long time to figure out. No one in the real world says any of this stuff...I did hear a guy at a pizzeria say weaksauce once however.
dekulink Sep 8th 2007 8:09AM
It took me so long to figure out what FTW meant. It doesn't make sense to me how someone made that abbreviation, but I use it anyway.
lucifer.cross Sep 8th 2007 8:18AM
People who swear up and down that PST is meant as 'psst' instead of Please Send Tell annoy the crap out of me. Things like "WTB [insert item here] please pst!" just makes me want to choke a bitch. "You're saying please twice, OMG!"
fealubryne Sep 8th 2007 8:18AM
I've been online for what seems like forever, so I'm used to the abbreviations people use. Especially so over text messaging, when they're just not very good at typing and can't be bothered to put forth a little effort into getting better at it. It used to annoy me, but somewhere along the line I've just come to accept it as "part of the online experience" or something like that.
Abbreviations of the various instances/raids still get me sometimes, though. I end up feeling like an idiot when people ask if I want to run whatever, and I have to ask what they're talking about.
Dave Sep 8th 2007 8:19AM
After almost 2 years of playing this game, I only recently found out what FTW meant.
I was in an EB a couple of days ago and someone came in who I didn't really want to talk to... I tried to be low profile and just get out of the store before she saw me, but she did and came running over. I said, "Ugh, we have agro" to the guy I was with. The clerk said, "AOE!"
FTW! ;)
Tamelis Sep 8th 2007 8:27AM
For the longest time I thought OMW meant Oh My Word. Made a lot more sense how often I was seeing it from people when I learned it meant On My Way lol
Numidium Sep 8th 2007 8:36AM
The words that really puzzled me when i just started wow consisted of "WTB" "WTS""Agro". Up until recently i didn't know what "PuG" "CC" "kite" (I'm a hunter) and "AoE" meant.
Ladorius Sep 8th 2007 8:45AM
What exactly is FTW? You guys mention it a few times and i still don't get it. And I don't know what pew pew is or something like that can someone elaborate?
watson13 May 1st 2009 12:41AM
it is my understanding it came from the vietnam war era,when our boys were in nam the called home the world(as in when you going back to the world),but when they came home they were not recieved well,called baby killer and so on.when they returned to the nam,and was was asked how the world was, hence,fuck the world,F.T.W
dreadlorde Sep 8th 2007 8:47AM
for the win.
RogueJedi86 Sep 8th 2007 8:50AM
FTW=For the Win
For a long time I thought it was WTF reversed, ie "Fsck the what"
BigRedPimp Sep 8th 2007 8:52AM
@8
"FTW" means For The Win (take a guess at what FTL means).
"Pew pew", at least from my take on it, is dealing large amounts of damage, usually by a mage or hunter. Think of the sound old school sci-fi "lasers" make and you get the reference.
Krianna Sep 8th 2007 8:52AM
lucifer.cross -- insert a comma. Problem solved.
Of course, then you start freaking 'cus folks are skipping punctuation, rather than saying "please" twice....
Dan Sep 8th 2007 8:55AM
what does pug mean?
Ladorius Sep 8th 2007 8:58AM
PUG = Pick up Group (that one i know) and thanks for explaining the pew pew reference I get it now....thanks
Krianna Sep 8th 2007 8:59AM
Pick Up Group.
That is, folks you don't know.
Krianna Sep 8th 2007 9:00AM
@11- "Pew Pew" is also used to complain that something isn't sufficiently fantasy for you-- such as that there are demons from space in the next expansion. ;^)
RogueJedi86 Sep 8th 2007 9:02AM
pewpewlaserspewpew
BigRedPimp Sep 8th 2007 9:06AM
@16 - OMG! Really? Wow, they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for content now. :P
Acceptable Risk Sep 8th 2007 9:06AM
Didn't you guys ever watch Hollywood Squares? "I'll take Joan Rivers for the win."
Anyway, I'm of the opinion that the only thing you have to represent yourself on the Internet are your words. As such, I try my best to represent myself well. I use full sentences with proper punctuation, spelling, and capitalization whenever possible and I try not to abbreviate.
I'll use the acronyms in the chat channel or the old LFG channels because that's what's expected there, but in whispers or the General or especially the forums, I'll use as much grammatical consideration as I can.