A personal or personal ad is an item or notice traditionally in the newspaper, similar to a classified ad but personal in nature. With its rise in popularity, the World Wide Web has also become a common medium for personals, commonly referred to as online dating. Personals are generally meant to generate romance, friendship, or casual (sometimes sexual) encounters, and usually include a basic description of the person posting it, and their interests.

Due to newspaper prices being based on characters or lines of text, a jargon of abbreviations, acronyms and code words arose in personals, and have carried over to the internet.

Examples of single-letter abbreviations used in three-letter acronyms (TLA)

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• 4: for ("seeking", "desires", etc.)--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• A: Asian--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• B: Black--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• C: Couple--for 3rd letter of a TLA
• F: Female--for 3rd letter of a TLA
• G: Gay--for 1st letter of a TLA
• H: Hispanic--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• J: Jewish or Japanese--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• L: Latino or Latina--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• M: Male (or Man)--used as 1st or 3rd letter of TLA
• M: Married--for 1st letter of a TLA
• S: Single--for 1st letter of a TLA
• T: Transgender--used before or after 4
• W: White--for 2nd letter of a TLA
• W: Woman--used before or after

List of common abbreviations, acronyms, and code words

References

• http://www.stargazers.com/abbrevad.html
• http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/
• http://www.1-true-love.com/datingtips/abbr.shtml
• http://www.all-acronyms.com/?tg=personals&o=a

See also

• Contact magazine
• Craigslist
• Gumtree
• Online dating service