Reddit Abbreviations You Should Know
Social media website Reddit has about 52 million daily users. With forums called "subreddits" on almost any topic you can think of, Reddit can be a good place to practice your English.
You might already know that LOL means "laugh out loud" and TL;DR means "too long; didn't read," but there are a lot of other internet abbreviations you'll see on Reddit and other similar websites.
The person who starts a thread in a subreddit is called "OP," meaning "original poster." And during an "AMA" — or "ask me anything" — the OP writes who they are and other users are invited to ask them any questions they have.
Anyone can do an AMA, but they are often started by people with unusual jobs, stories and experiences to share. Sometimes AMAs are done by famous people — even Barack Obama has done one. You can find AMAs on a lot of subreddits, but the home of the AMA is r/IAmA.
You can learn a lot from AMAs, so you might have a chance to use the abbreviation "TIL," which means "today I learned." It is usually written before someone shares a new fact that surprised them. In fact, there's a whole subreddit for people to share new things they have found out called r/todayilearned.
People ask a lot of questions on subreddits, but they aren't always answered by experts! When someone thinks they know the answer to a question or has a useful piece of information, but they aren't 100% sure that it's correct, they might write "AFAIK," meaning "as far as I know."
