Not Kidding

Scott Hardie | January 14, 2004
And to start what I hope is a new trend in trivial discussions, let me ask something I wondered about today: Online acronyms are often precise as to their source, such as "ROTFL" instead of the simpler "RFL." So where did the slash in "J/K" come from? Is that like the slash in the title of "Face/Off"?

Anna Gregoline | January 14, 2004
Hmm, interesting question. I could pose it to Ask Metafilter, if you like? They can usually track down an answer.

Scott Hardie | January 15, 2004
I'd appreciate it, but it's up to you. I have not found an answer in my own research.

Anna Gregoline | January 15, 2004
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/4652">http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/4652

Kris Weberg | January 15, 2004
The only thing I can thinkof is the provenance of the "/" for IRC commands -- you know, if you leave it off, you don't put a chatter on "Ignore," you just type "ignore" into the chat. So maybe it's some kind of in-joke or l33t tag that fell into common circulation.

Scott Hardie | January 15, 2004
Could be. These things come and go with the code. I remember using <G> back in the mid-nineties before forms processed HTML.

Erik Bates | January 15, 2004
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | January 15, 2004
Further proof that the ancient Sumerians were more advanced than we thought: They had AOLisms before we did.