FBI's 83-page glossary on internet slang filled with obscurities

The internet is full of strange and bewildering neologisms, which anyone but a text-addled teen would struggle to understand.

So the FBI - apparently not content to trawl Urban Dictionary - compiled a glossary of internet slang. An 83-page glossary. Containing nearly 3,000 terms.

The glossary was recently made public through a Freedom of Information request by the group MuckRock, which posted the PDF, called "Twitter shorthand", online.

Despite its name, this isn't just Twitter slang: As the FBI's Intelligence Research Support Unit explains in the introduction, it's a primer on shorthand used across the internet, including in "instant messages, Facebook and Myspace".

The FBI's research unit then promises the list will prove useful both professionally and "for keeping up with your children and/or grandchildren".

Minor gaffes could be forgiven, however, if the glossary itself was actually good. Instead, it throws up obscurities such as ALOTBSOL ("always look on the bright side of life") and AMOG ("alpha male of group") within the first 10 entries.