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IDEK! The ABCs of decoding teen text lingo

Every generation has its own secret code. Here's your guide to teen text lingo. IKR? (I know, right?)
/ Source: TODAY Contributor

Every generation has its secret code, from 1950s beatniks (can ya dig it, Daddy-O?) to 1980s Valley Girls (fer sure, fer sure). And every generation's elders swing between get-off-my-lawn confusion and sad attempts at adopting it to sound hip. On Wednesday, the TODAY anchors bravely ventured into the world of teen texting lingo, with Savannah Guthrie quizzing the crew on terminology. Here's how they did:

OOTD: "Outfit of the day." Matt Lauer knew this one, reporting that he'd heard it in the makeup room.

IDEK: "I don't even know." Most of the anchors were able to suss this one out, though Al Roker still looked confused. He doesn't even know!

GOAT: "Greatest of all time." Carson Daly scored on this one. It's also the title of a book about one of the true greats of all time, boxer Muhammad Ali.

PAP: "Post a picture." The women on the panel were more likely to think "Pap smear," but that's not it. "Don't post a picture of your Pap smear," joked Savannah.

Sure, maybe you scored 100 percent on these terms. Let's try a few others — and two completely fictional ones just to really test you. Note that everything old is new again — some of these have been around since the first days of email and AIM.

IKR: "I know, right?" A way to confirm that you agree with your pal's comment. Not to be confused with IFR, which you may not need to know, but your airplane pilot does.

GTG: "Got to go!" Although really, just typing "bye" takes the same amount of letters. In military slang, "GTG" stands for "good to go."

AFK: "Away from keyboard." Let's just hope today's kids don't assume it's "Away from Komputer," which could lead to some serious spelling issues.

FTW: "For the win." Used as kind of a modern "hooray" when paired with something good, as in, "chocolate lava cake, FTW!" But careful: before this usage, it was a popular biker tattoo meaning "@#$! the world."

SMH: "Shaking my head." Often spotted in comments on Internet news stories, as in, "what is WITH this latest crazy crime story out of Florida? SMH!"

LMK: "Let me know." Too bad "know" has that silent k, or we could maybe find a way to make this abbreviation LMNOP. Let Me kNow, Old People?

IMHO: "In my humble opinion." Except whenever you see this, the person sharing their opinion is rarely being humble.

FBFURSU: "Facebook friend you really should unfollow." Yes, we made this up, but wouldn't it be useful for that one long-lost relative who keeps getting mad when you won't share her inspirational Minion memes?

BTWTOCC: "Back to wasting time on Candy Crush!" Another one we made up, but it would be embarrassingly useful. Why can't we save all the bears? Time-wasting games FTW!

Sarah Epstein contributed to this story.