One of the great things about bingo, online Bingo in particular, is that it is vibrant, expanding, vital, alive, and developing. Just as the English language is a living language in that it adapts expands and changes as it is used and as more people learn it and use it, be they native to an English-speaking country or not, so does Bingo lingo expand and develop.
Unless you've been on Mars for the last 10 years during the social network revolution, you probably already know the in famous LOL which stands for Laugh out Loud... someone has found something you've said very funny! A rather rude variation I've seen is LMAO, which stands for laughing my bottom off! An even more extreme one that is taking off is ROTFLMAO... rolling on the floor, laughing my bottom off!
If as a player new to a Bingo you are asked ASL? Or A/S/L? you are being asked whether you'd like to volunteer your age, your gender, and your location. While gender usually narrows down to one of two answers (!), you can either ignore any requests to give your age, or be vague- such as "mid-forties", "in the first blush of youth" or "no spring chicken!". For location, people aren't looking for your house number and post-code, but country, region or county, or city/town.
During a Bingo game you will often see players saying 1TG 2TG or 3TG. That means that the player has one number to go, two numbers to go or three numbers to go before they can claim a win.
You'll also see references to the CM... that's the Chat Room Moderator, the guy or gal who keeps an eye on the Room to make sure everyone is behaving and respecting each other. They will also join in and can usually be found to be very knowledgeable about Bingo, and very funny!
Common other Bingo chat room acronyms are TYVM- thank you very much, usually after you've given someone some advice, encouragement, congratulations, or maybe just had a nice conversation with them!
If you've got to take a comfort break, or want to leave the chat room for a while, you can say AKF- away from keyboard, BRB- be right back, BBL- be back later, and GGP- gotta goto pee!
Anyway, that's all for this Part One... I've GGP!!