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Why is OOF an OOF and not an OOO?

Here’s an interesting historical question - when we say Out of Office, why does it sometimes get shortened to ‘OOF’? Shouldn’t it be ‘OOO’?
 
Inside Microsoft, ‘OOF’ means not just the message which says you’re Out of Office, but it has grown to mean the act of being Out of the Office too - so you’ll get people putting sticky notes on their door saying ‘OOF Thurs & Fri’ or even people verbally saying things like, "Oh, Kevin’s OOF on vacation for the rest of the week’. I suppose that sounds better than "Oh, Kevin’s OOO on vacation ..."
 
OOF was a command used in the days of Microsoft’s Xenix mail system, which set a user as ‘Out of Facility’ - ie Out of the Office. The usage of the term ‘OOF’ just stuck, as did the term ‘Little r’ (e.g. on an email sent to a distribution list, "Who wants to go to the cinema tonight? Little ‘r’ if you’re interested", meaning reply just to me) - as preserved in Outlook with CTRL+R for Reply, and CTRL+SHIFT+R (aka Big R) for Reply All.

- Ewan Dalton

Published Monday, July 12, 2004 11:47 AM by Exchange
Filed Under: , ,

Comments

 

Adam said:

Ah.. it all becomes clear now :)
July 12, 2004 3:08 PM
 

ScottGu's Blog said:

November 4, 2004 10:30 AM
 

Tech Presales News for Austrian Partners said:

Ausnahmsweise ein englischer Blogeintrag, geklaut von http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/07/12/180899.aspx
April 3, 2007 8:56 AM
 

You Had Me At EHLO... said:


To take full advantage of the new features in Out-of-Office auto-replies, you should use either Outlook...
April 4, 2007 4:25 PM
 

David Strommer said:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/07/12/180899.aspx I came across this post this morning... You've
April 6, 2007 7:55 AM
 

David Baakman » Blog Archive » Out of Office in Outlook 2000 said:

May 14, 2007 3:27 PM
 

フィールドSEあがりの安納です said:

こんばんは。 唐突ですが、私、老眼です。なので、老眼鏡を作りました。最近、日本語翻訳されたドキュメントを査読する仕事がありまして、老眼鏡が手放せませんでした...老眼鏡って...便利...。もともと両目共に2.0なので、全くメガネには縁がありませんでしたが、まさか38歳にして老眼鏡のお世話になるとは....。老眼鏡って便利です。しみじみ。
May 17, 2007 2:06 PM
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