With the popularity and rise in usage of real time text-based communications, such as instant messaging, e-mail, Internet and online gaming chat rooms, discussion boards and cell phone text messaging (SMS), came the emergence of a new language tailored to the immediacy and compactness of these new communication media. If you have ever been in a chat room or received an instant message or text message from someone that seemed to be in its own foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text chat lingo by providing the definitions to over 900 chat, SMS, and IM abbreviations.