13 Common ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS in English

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Do do do do, what’s the worm talking about?

Bob, what’s the ETA on the ROI?

I don’t even know what that means, but I’m going to teach you a lesson and you’ll understand

what the worm’s talking about and you’ll be able to use some acronyms and abbreviations

that are used in business and texting and emailing.

Let’s go to the board and we’ll start off with – first of all, what’s an abbreviation?

An abbreviation is a shortening of the word, and you can think of an abbreviation for “will

not” is “won’t”, we take two words and we shorten by putting them together and

contracting them, but it’s shortened.

An acronym is when you take the first letter of each word and you put them together.

For example, in “ETA”, it’s estimated time of arrival.

On the board, an abbreviation for “attention” would be right here, “att”, and we get

rid of all the words, and I did a video about commas and contractions, you can check it

out, but that comma says something is missing – sorry, apostrophe, not comma – ugh,

it’s in the space.

The apostrophe says there are words missing or letters missing, so we contract it.

So, now that we know what an abbreviation is and an acronym is, why don’t we go to

the board and try to figure out what’s going on?

If you notice, I drew a clock and there’s no particular order, so don’t think one

is better than the other, it’s just to give you an idea where we’re going to go and

I’ve got a couple of other ones that you’ll find in the bonus section, that’s why those

spaces are there.

So, let’s start with the first one: for your information, FYI people will say, and

you’ll hear that a lot, FYI.

Well, saying it as well as writing it and in text, it means for your information, you

don’t know this, so I’m going to let you know, I’m going to inform you, give you

information you don’t have.

Next one is “by the way”.

Another way of saying by the way is “incidentally” and incidentally means something to be added

and so “By the way, Johnny will be late for the party”, right?

I’m just going to add that in and bring it in there, it might not even be part of

the regular conversation, right, so we’re going to be needing you.

For cards, we’re going to have to buy some cards for the party, oh by the way, incidentally,

Johnny will be late today.

Adding that in because it comes in “by the way”, not directly.

N/A: not applicable, means does not apply.

It means it’s not part of it, so taxes are not applicable on this item, because it’s

made in Canada, there are – they won’t apply to the product.

So, not applicable – doesn’t apply, has no effect.

BRB: be right back.

It means we’re in the middle of conversation, I have to stop right now, go somewhere else,

but I will be back later, okay?

So, I’m going to come and continue the conversation later.

You can even say it in real life, like “Hey, be right back.”, means stop, hold where

we are, I’ll come back in a second or two.

IMO: in my opinion, meaning there may be some facts, but the way I think about it is this

So, in my opinion, yellow is the best color in the world, because it is, and it is, that’s

my opinion, right?

We live in a world now of non-facts, so maybe it is a fact in my world, because my perception.

Let’s forget I even said all that, okay?

Something just went through my head, but it’s not a fact, it’s my opinion.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

The sun is hot, it’s a fact.

Yellow is a great color is my opinion, okay?

Science will back up one, not the other.

SOP: it doesn’t mean “son of a bitch”, it’s standard operating procedures.

What SOP stands for, when you have a complex organization or something that is difficult

to do, run an operation, for instance, McDonald’s, although you might think it’s cheap, disgusting

food, which it is, there are certain ways McDonald’s operates that makes it very efficient

and effective in delivering the food to you.

They have certain procedures, and these are standardized, meaning there are six hamburgers

that go on and are flipped every two minutes.

They get flipped, they box the buns, the bun person does this.

There are procedures that are standardized, and all the employees know each step and follow

each one to take a difficult process and simplify it.

That’s why we stay “standard operating procedure” because you saw all the words

I had to say in order to explain it.

We just say “SOP”, do the damn rules.

There are rules, follow them.

If you follow them, everything works out.

YTD: in this case, it means “year to date”.

What have you done up to this part of the year?

If – let’s pretend this is November the 9th.

Well, we’re now 11 months into the year, so you to year to date, from January to now,

this is what has happened.

What’s the year to date, what’s going on in this particular part of the year, from

the year to date, we’ve done this much, this much, this much, okay?

ROI: return on investment.

This is an interesting one because it’s taken from business, it means if I take some

money and I put this money into something to make money because an investment is something

– invest means investus, it means to put in a vest, I wish I had one on.

There are pockets you put it in and it’s safe and secure.

So, when you have money and you don’t just want to keep it in a bank and you want to

make the money larger, you put it in an investment.

Maybe you buy a house, maybe you buy stocks in a company, okay, and you get money back

Return on investment is how much money you get back from putting it in.

So, if I take 1000 dollars and I put it in, say, Apple stocks, I buy some Apple.

And a year later, I have 1,100, I had a 10% return on my investment, being 10% of the

money, I got 10% more money from putting it in Apple than keeping it in my pocket.

A return on investment can also be if I put energy into something, what do I get back?

You have a relationship.

You have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, you spend a lot of time with them.

Do they take you out, do nice things for you, give you massages?

You’re return on investment is very good.

Situation B: you spend a lot of time with them.

They drink, eat fish and chips on the couch, burp, and fart and that’s all they do.

Your return on investment is very bad.

You’re getting nothing for the time you’re putting in.

You need to move on into a new relationship.

So, although this is a business term, you can use it.

A few of these can be used in different conversations and different contexts.

Let’s look over here, moving up the clock.

ETA: I’m terrible, and many people will say that to me, they’ll go “What’s your

ETA?” because literally like “When are you going to get here?” or when is something

going to happen?

ETA is “time of arrival” but it can mean when it something going to happen?

What’s the ETA for the birthday, what’s the ETA – estimated.

They don’t want the exact minute, they want an approximate, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, give

me some time to work with, alright?

If someone’s pregnant, you can say “Hey, what’s the ETA on the baby?”.

They might go “Oh, probably March 19th or March 27th.”, estimate the baby will come

at this time, before the baby pops out.

Okay, my bad Italian or whatever accent that was.

Attention, it means to somebody, say “Pay attention”, attention K-Mart shoppers, oh

I shouldn’t have said that because K-mart doesn’t exist anymore, so nobody knows what

But you can say “Attention, Amazon online shoppers”, it means I want your attention,

attention to you, please pay attention, look at this.

Attention (Att’n).

And two question marks.

It’s not a question of whether I did my work – which I did!

The question is “What’s in the bonus section?”, which you will find out.

Let’s go to the other board and have some fun.

But just before we do, quick review.

Just before we do – quick review.

For your information, I’m going to tell you something.

By the way, oh did I forget, I should mention this as well.

Bring it in for you.

Non applicable, don’t worry about it.

Be right back, hold on a second, I’m coming back.

In my opinion, of course, my opinion is always right.

Standard operating procedure, think McDonald’s and those hamburgers.

Don’t think too much about the hamburgers, but think about how they go from the back

Year to date, what have you done this year?

Return on investment, remember the relationship thing I talked about, right?

What are you getting back for what you’re giving?

ETA, what’s the estimated time of arrival?

When is this going to happen?

Att’n: pay attention.

And then, well you know, it’s time.

Let’s go see the other board, see how well you’ve learned this.

Hi, okay, before we go to the next screen, something I wanted to bring up, so I’ll

bring it up now really quickly before we do our little test.

I mentioned that some of these things can be used verbally, that means you say it, and

some things are only done for writing, so I want to bring it up right now.

For instance, I want to bring this to your attention: att’n is only ever written, and

usually when you use that one, you put the person’s name after.

So, you might say “Att’n Mr. E.”, okay?

You never would actually say that one.

Ones you would say, so you’re going to keep this in mind, for instance, ETA, people will

say “What’s your ETA.”.

They will also say, in business, so this would be said in a private setting as well, it could

be written, but they will actually say it.

ROI will also be said, mostly by businesspeople.

You won’t see the average person saying, so what’s the ROI on that beer?

They won’t say that unless, I don’t know, they’re joking, being really sarcastic,

but businesspeople will say that.

They will also say verbally “SOP”, because this takes way long to say, they might say

“What’s the SOP in this particular situation?” and it makes perfect sense.

Don’t ever say “BRB”.

You can write it down, but if you say “BRB” they’ll say “Okay, Urkel.”

Urkel is a very uncool guy from the 1980s, check him out, don’t be that guy.

And no one’s going to say “IMO”.

They’ll say, “In my opinion”, but they will write it, but the other ones they will

They will say “FYI” and then some will sarcastically, like “FYI, the sun is hot!”,

not necessarily the same but people will say it in that kind of circumstance, okay?

Anyway, I gotta get going because we’re going to go back to the other board, see you

Okay, so listen, we’re back and ooh, look at all that stuff on the board!

Ooh, we’re going to have to look and shrink it down with maybe an abbreviation or an acronym.

So, let’s go to the board first and some of you are like, really good and you have

it down, or you can do this mini-test for yourself before you go to www.engvid.com and

What I want you to do is take a look here and look at what we can possibly change and

put those new abbreviations and acronyms in, okay?

So, if you pay attention here, you can also use this as a teaching aid for yourself.

You’ll notice I’ve written this twice.

You can always go back and see the changes that I’ve made from one board to the other.

I did it so you could actually see what’s here and what we’ve done to make it new.

Keep that in mind and use it as a teaching tool.

Go back, watch the video, and see how – if you can figure out why the changes were made.

So, I’m going to give you a couple of seconds, okay?

For those of you who are jumping in now, go ahead, write it down, and you can jump ahead

in a couple of seconds.

And the rest of you guys, if you want, you stay with me and we’ll start the process,

okay, of figuring it out.

Let’s go.

So, the first thing we need to look at is “Marcus bought a ticket” – sorry, “Marcus

bought a plane ticket to go to Japan on business.

When he got to Japan, he visited his friend Rino.

The ticket had a great return on investment” wink wink, that one’s easy, on investment

“with the added visit.

Rino was excited to see him and asked when he would arrive in Japan.

Incidentally, Rino said ‘I will have to attend a party when you come.’

Marco said, ‘that sucks badly!’”

Poor Marco does the better language.

We’ll help him with that one.

“Rino said, ‘I think you are more important than a party.

I will meet you instead’.”

Now, let’s outline the errors and the things that we should change and in the second part,

we’ll actually make the changes.

“Marcus bought a plane ticket to go to Japan on business.”

Straightforward.

“When he got to Japan, he visited Rino.

The ticket had a great return on investment”.

Well, there we go right here, I will say, that looks like a thing we might want to change,

“with the added visit.

Rino was excited to see him and asked when he would arrive in Japan.”

I think we can look at this one.

“Incidentally, Rino said”, we’re going to hit that, I think, “I will have to attend

a party when you come.’

‘That sucks badly!’”

You knew that was coming, because that was just horribly said.

“Reno said ‘I think you are more important than a party.

I will meet you instead.’”

Hm, that seems like it’s okay, but I think we could change that one.Now, I’ve outlined

one, two, three, four, five things we can change.

So, what can we do?

Let’s go to the second – the other board and we’ll make those changes, okay?

Let’s go.

So, “Marcus bought a plane ticket to go to Japan on business.”, cool.

“When he got to Japan, he visited his friend Rino.”

And here, we said “return on investment”, so we already know what that one is because

we did it, I wrote it out for you literally – ROI, and we said a return on investment

is what you get back from what you give.

So, ROI, okay? “with the added visit.”

First, he invested money to fly to Japan and because he was able to do that, he was able

to meet his friend, Rino.

Wow, he invested this, he got this extra.

“with the added visit.

Rino was excited to see him and asked when he would arrive in Japan.”

Seems perfectly normal English and it would, but you could say “ask”, sorry, I’m

going to go here.

I have to change a couple of words, though.

“for” – I’m going to go here – and I don’t have to say, “in Japan”, because

already know he’s going to Japan, so “asked for his” – sorry – “his ETA”.

Just for his ETA, when are you going to come here?

Your estimated time of arrival.

“Incidentally,” remember I underlined incidentally, what do we use for that one?

Get rid of “incidentally” and put “by the way”, right?

“I will have to attend a party when you come.’

Marco said, ‘that sucks badly!’”.

Hm, I haven’t taught you that one because it’s actually in the bonus section, so you’re

going to have to wait a second to find out what he wants to say instead, but know that

this is going to be gone in five seconds, okay?

“Rino said ‘I think you’re more important than a party, I will meet you’”.

Now, “I think” seems so perfectly perfect that there’s no reason to change it, but

she doesn’t really mean I think, what she means is “In my opinion”, you’re more

important than a party.

Someone else’s opinion might be different.

It’s not a fact, we’ve talked about that before.

Facts are something you find in Science or reality, and opinion is just something you

In her opinion, he’s more important than any party.

But you’re probably going “James, what about this one, you haven’t changed it.”

Well, I gave you business acronyms and abbreviations, now I’m going to give you some acronyms

and abbreviations that aren’t quite businesslike.

You shouldn’t put this in – when you go to work, you don’t want to put these in

any work memos or work texts.

It might be your last day on the job!

So, some not so businesslike acronyms.

You might go “WTF?”

You wouldn’t actually say it, no, you wouldn’t say it, but you’ll see on paper “WTF”

and it could mean one of two things: who the f*ck and what the f*ck?

When I don’t know who someone is and they’re doing something strange, or somebody’s doing

something I don’t like who – they’re doing something to me that I don’t like,

I’m going to go “Who the f*ck are you?”, or “Who do you think you are?” or “Who

the f*ck is that?”

like I don’t know who that person is.

“What the f*ck?”

means, like, “What’s happening, this is just crazy?”

They go “What the f*ck happened here?”

What’s happening, this is just crazy, it’s insane.

Now, Mr. Marco is coming all the way from Brazil, I forgot to mention up here, he bought

a ticket from Brazil to go to Japan to see Rino.

This is a great story of friendship.

When Rino says “I have to go a party and it’s more important than you flying from

Brazil to Japan.”, he said “That sucks badly”.

To be quite honest, most people won’t say “That sucks badly.”.

They might say “That sucks” or “That’s too bad”, but they’re not going to say

But I wanted to give you a couple of words that would make you understand why my man

might say – I’m going to get rid of this now – FML.

It means “Oh, my life is so terrible because of this present situation.

F*ck my life!”

Sometimes, we say “f*ck me”, like personally like, “f*ck me”, like “Oh, I’m in

such trouble, f*ck me, why did I do that?

I put myself in a bad situation.”, alright?

Now, I gave you one more: TBH, it means “to be honest”.

I find it – I honestly find it funny that we actually use the word “honest” when

we speak to people, like, “I want to be honest with you”.

My assumption is that you are honest with me all the time.

The fact that you have to say you want to be honest with me makes me think you must

lie to me all the time and today’s the exception to the rule.

People normally put down “To be honest, the product was good” or “To be honest,

I wasn’t satisfied with this.”

Shouldn’t they just say, “I wasn’t satisfied”?

That’s honest, but it’s usually used for emphasis, like I want to tell you, this is

really coming from my heart.

I’m really wondering where it came from before then.

So, these are three that are not so businesslike that you can use.

Once again, don’t say them, you don’t say to anyone “FML!”, they’ll go “What

is that, a sandwich of some type?” but you write it down and they’ll go “I get what

you’re trying to say, you’re trying to be polite.”

Once again, please don’t write it in company emails or company texts, not appropriate,

but it’s good for after you write it to the boss, then write to your friend, “FML,

I’m going to lose my job.”

Okay, next, what are we going to do for homework?

Homework’s simple in this case.

I want you to write an email or a text to someone who speaks English.

Or, if you don’t know anyone who speaks English, write an email or a text to a friend

that’s learning English and use some of these abbreviations and acronyms.

It’s a great thing to do because what’s going to happen is they’re going to say

“What do you mean, F, FM?

Or what do you mean, WTF?

What do these things mean?”

You will take the time not only to practice in writing and using them appropriately, but

you’ll get to explain it to someone which means you will learn it, you know, you’ll

be better at learning it because you’ve had to explain it to someone else, so you’ve

had to clarify it in your brain.

I gotta get going, so I want to say this to you, I should have said “mind”, not “brain”.

Time for me to go.

I would like you to do your homework and I’d like you to visit www.engvid.com where you

can do the test, www.engvid.com , do your test there, but don’t forget to subscribe,

You’ll see a bell, hit that bell, you’ll get the latest videos that I do, and as always,

thank you very much.

I always appreciate the fact that you come back and watch these videos and it makes me

try to think of things that will be more useful for you in the future, okay?

Anyway, it’s always a pleasure and we’ll see you soon.