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TRWTF is they were running as root, at a nuclear sciences research facility!

TRWTF is that the World Cup was in South Africa.

What's the detailed meaning of the above sentences?

How many catchphrases like "IMHO" in English? Be thankful to any advice.

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@kit.yang, "How many catchphrases like "IMHO" in the common spoken English?" should be entered as a separate question on the site. – b.roth Nov 15 '10 at 15:02
FMI: does anybody use those in spoken English? TRWTF even has more syllables than the phrase itself. And how would IMHO be pronounced? – malach Nov 15 '10 at 15:08
@Bruno Rothgiesser Thanks for your advice.I will edit the problem soon. – kit.yang Nov 15 '10 at 15:23
@Ralph Rickenbach I have modified the questions.Thanks. – kit.yang Nov 15 '10 at 15:25
@Ralph, expressions like WTF, OMG, IMHO, BTW, etc. are spoken on my college campus. It's also not unheard of for people to say "smiley" or "angry face" in lieu of emoticons. Take from that what you will. :) – kitukwfyer Nov 15 '10 at 17:36
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2 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

It means:

The real "What the F***"

Which is:

What is really bad about this, where they really blew it was...

WTF is an abbreviation in its own right and could also mean

What in the world, what in God's name

Therefore TRWTF would express

The reason one might exclaim "What in the world is this", is that they were running as root, at a nuclear sciences research facility.

For the origin, see Claudiu's answer.

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"where the really blew"? – Claudiu Nov 15 '10 at 15:24
I believe that should be "where they really blew it was..." – mskfisher Nov 15 '10 at 15:34
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I'm not sure the emphasis of "WTF" is (in this case or in general) that they screwed up. It means something more like "The really shocking thing that you wouldn't have seen coming," but with a connotation that the surprise is negative. – Henry Nov 15 '10 at 19:17
This XKCD comic demonstrates an example of TRWTF: xkcd.com/463 – Andrew Grimm Jan 25 '11 at 12:00
up vote 6 down vote

Ralph's answer has got the meaning. As to the origin... there is a website, www.thedailywtf.com, which has daily posts of really idiotic and messed up coding practices. Usually the story is obviously terrible in a certain way. However, people say "Well, the real wtf is..." meaning, the thing that is really messed up.. and they point out something more subtle/funny.

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2  
Usually TRWTF is the fact that the code sample is written in Visual Basic. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Nov 15 '10 at 19:19
@Mr. Shiny and New At the website Claudiu given,I saw the origin of WTF.offers living examples of code that invites the exclamation 'WTF!?'" and "recounts tales of disastrous development, from project management gone spectacularly bad to inexplicable coding choices. – kit.yang Nov 16 '10 at 2:11
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@kit.yang: that website isn't really the origin of the term "WTF", just one of the places that have helped make it popular. However, users on that site may have coined "TRWTF", where it is a running joke/meme to try to come up with the wittiest or funniest "real" wtf. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Nov 16 '10 at 13:43
TRWTF, as always, is the comments ;) (p.s. that's a quote from every comments thread on TDWTF.com) – Matt Эллен Apr 26 '11 at 17:39
@Matt: is that automatically inserted into each thread or something, then? – SamB May 4 '11 at 5:24

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