IRC
Actions and emotions
Abbreviations

IRC

Inter Relay Chat (IRC) is one of the most used features of internet, apart from the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail. Although chatting is quite similar to normal conversation there are a few differences. One of the most obvious differences is the use of abbreviations. Another difference are the emoticons and actions. Once you become a 'regular' in a channel you will get familiar with most abbreviations, but in the beginning you might feel a bit confused. Also, when you are going to chat in another room, totally different acronyms and abbreviations may be used, some of which you might not be familiar with. Different rooms and channels tend to differ quite a lot in usage of abbreviations: some rooms hardly use them, others nearly exist on abbreviations. To get an idea what 'those people might be talking about' you will find an explanation for most common and less common abbreviations and emoticons here.

Many people chat via website-based chatrooms. Another way of chatting is via IRC programs, of which mIRC is probably best-known. These kind of programs have lots of advantages. One of those advantages is the possibility to use "(pop-up)scripts". Another good thing about these programs is the fact that they less likely to crash than website-based chatrooms.
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Actions and emotions

Actions: Asterisks are often used to display an action (e.g. *wink*, *blush*, *grin*,etc)

Smileys: Smileys are used to express emotions (and are therefore also called 'emoticons'). Most seem to explain themselves. A few examples:

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Abbreviations in IRC

This is a listing of abbreviations that I've encountered while chatting and some I found on websites. Some may not be very common. Note that I've given them in capitals, but usually they are typed normally as the use of capitals represents screaming in chat!