The Complete Guide to Twitter Lingo

Mashable, By Amy-Mae Elliott
Here at Mashable, we live and breathe Twitter. However, sometimes we see a tweet containing an acronym or an abbreviation with which we're not very familiar.

If you find yourself in the same situation, then take a look through our handy list for a complete glossary of terms you may come across in tweets.

See also: 25 Clever Twitter Keyboard Shortcuts

While some abbreviations and acronyms may be common across all social media sites, others are unique to the microblogging platform. Browse our guide, and be sure to shout out any terms we've missed in the comments below.

@ The "at" sign is used to mention another Twitter account (e.g., @Mashable). Within a tweet, it becomes a link to that user's profile. You may see it used in a geographical sense, such as "I'm @ the office," but this is just text-speak and not Twitter-specific.

# The hash (or pound) symbol is used to highlight keywords, topics, events or even emotions in a tweet. Using a hashtag turns the word or phrase into a link that lets you see other tweets containing the same tag. Examples: "Loving the #weather," "Watching the #SuperBowl," "Headed to #SXSW," "Long day — feeling #tiredandemotional."

^ The caret, or hat sign, is used to denote a tweet composed and sent by an individual on behalf of a group account used by multiple people (often a company or organization) account. It usually appears at the end of a Tweet and precedes initials, to indicate which user sent the tweet (e.g., ^JS).$ The dollar sign is used on Twitter before a company's shortened stock market name/code as a kind of financial hashtag. For example, $AAPL (Apple), $GOOG (Google) and $MSFT (Microsoft). Within tweets, codes prefixed with the dollar sign will become links.

AFAIK "As far as I know."

CC CC's literal meaning is "carbon copy." As with memos and emails, CC is a way of ensuring a Twitter user sees certain content. Used with an @ mention — for example, "Interesting article - www.urlurl.com - cc @Bob" — it will help draw a Tweet to someone's attention.

CX "Correction."

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