E-mail communication enriches the language with new phrases.

"Some of those new TLAs and FLAs you run across when you're hooked into an ISP or a BBS really get you ROTFL. But a lot of them are so SMTOE that I'd almost prefer to communicate F2F - you know, ITRW."

And if you don't understand that paragraph, we'd have to say you are so OOIB that you ought to RTM.

The new world of electronic communication - whether it is carried via e-mail or interoffice messaging or on the chat screens of online systems - is enriching our language through a flood of neologisms and acronyms.

This is of academic interest to linguists and English professors. For us personal computer users, it's a more practical matter. As more and more of our correspondence comes to us on screens, we're going to have to get used to some of the new words and abbreviations that are becoming standard online lingo.

The reason for these shortened forms of standard phrases is obvious: Online communication is not spoken, but typed. And since typing phrases like "Rolling On The Floor Laughing" or "Sets My Teeth On Edge" can be tiresome, it's only natural that people would reduce them to abbreviations. To wit: "ROTFL" and "SMTOE." (If something is extremely annoying, the latter might come out "S!M!T!O!E!").

A lot of the new terms you find floating around on the bit stream these days are either TLAs or FLAs - "Three-Letter Acronyms" or "Four-Letter Acronyms." That is to say, "FLA" is a TLA that means "Four-Letter Acronym."

Perhaps the most common of these new shortened forms is a phrase that has become nearly ubiquitous in the software world: "FAQ." This acronym, pronounced "fak," stands for "Frequently Asked Questions."

Almost all software manuals and online Help screens now begin with a couple of pages of "FAQ" The software makers know from experience which questions are asked most frequently by customers who call up seeking technical help. To cut the cost of dealing with these companies now provide answers in the documentation.

If you don't read the user manual, by the way, and then send an e-mail or a chat-line query asking one of these "Frequently Asked Questions," you're likely to get this curt and nasty reply: "Why don't you just RTM?" That means "Read The Manual." If the person you ask is really ticked off by your query, she might add a withering adjective to the phrase, so that it comes out "RTFM." This is sometimes accompanied by the assertion that you are "totally OOIB," which is to say, "Out Of It, Buddy."

Of course, that kind of online nastiness can be a real PITA ("Pain In The ..."). Some BBS operations (that is, "bulletin board system," a term that usually means a free online service) and ISPs (that is, "Internet service providers") try to ban these nasty phrases, but they aren't always successful. Perhaps the more realistic approach is to remind the "netizens," those who take pride in being citizens of cyberspace, that adherence to a few basic rules of netiquette will make their new world more inviting.

Fortunately, there are many kinder, gentler terms that pop up online as well. If you read the chat screens of online services or "news groups" on the Internet, where people exchange messages and commentaries and general conversation, you'll find the screen studded with polite abbreviations: BTW ("By The Way"); IMHO ("In My Humble Opinion"); TMOT ("Trust Me On This"); WADR ("With All Due Respect"); and of course, "THANX."

As these TLAs and FLAs proliferate in the computer world, they are starting to spill over into off-line life as well. This seems particularly so among college kids, who are probably the most prolific users of e-mail.

Sipping coffee in a student union not long ago, we heard somebody change the topic in a (spoken) conversation by saying "BTW." This actually takes longer to say than the original phrase, "By The Way, but it is so common on campus that the TLA form may be taking over.

Walking across the University of Colorado campus recently, we saw a poster advertising a rock concert. One corner of it was labeled "FAQ Box" - it set forth the date, place, ticket price and contact phone number for the event.

That's not surprising, because even the nerdiest of computer nerds can't spend every hour of life at the computer. Every once in a while, two people who have conversed online get so interested in each other that a startling proposal is made. "Why don't we F2F?" one will type. "You know, ITRW."

Which means these two are going to turn off the infernal machines and get together In The Real World, so they can meet Face 2 Face.

T.R. Reid is Rocky Mountain bureau chief of the Washington Post. Brit Hume is a Capitol Hill correspondent for ABC News. You can reach them in care of the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St., Washington D.C. 20071-9200, or you can e-mail T.R. Reid at [e-mail], or Brit Hume at [e-mail].