TTFN means “ta ta for now,” a British phrase for saying goodbye. It was popularized by a radio show in the late 1940s and gained popularity in the US through Winnie-the-Pooh’s friend Tigger. TTFN is now commonly used as an acronym for “see you later” in internet chat and messaging. It can also refer to other things, such as a space battle game or a club for tenured faculty on college campuses.
TTFN is an acronym that means “ta ta for now”. The phrase “ta ta for now” is a predominantly British English phrase that is used at the time of separation. “Ta ta” is a casual or slang equivalent of “goodbye”.
Britons have long used the casual “ta ta” among friends, among children and in other informal contexts. The addition of “for now” is believed to have been popularized by a British radio program in the late 1940s. That show, called “It’s That Man Again,” featured a character known as Mrs. Mopp who signed each episode by saying “TTFN! Ta ta for now!” The show aired in 1949, but not before the phrase had sunk into the common vernacular.
The popularity of using TTFN as a way to say goodbye quickly or casually crossed the Atlantic into the United States most famously in Disney’s 1966 film adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh. Winnie-the-Pooh is a teddy bear that came to life in the book collection of British author AA Milne. Walt Disney Studios bought the film rights to the Pooh Bear books and created animations filled with original dialogues and various adaptations of the plot.
In the animated series, one of Pooh’s friends, Tigger, typically says “TTFN, ta-ta for now!” as he jumps out of the scene. Tigger is a tiger known for his exuberance and great energy of him. In Milne’s books, however, Tigger did not use this phrase.
TTFN is widely understood in common parlance as a way of saying “see you later.” The acronym is really just said as a string of letters, however. In modern times, people rarely say “ta-ta for now”.
With the advent of the Internet and instant communications, TTFN has also caught on as an acronym for the Internet. Chat, text, and instant messaging often use acronyms and abbreviations for longer sentences and as a means of quickly conveying more complicated thoughts. “LOL,” for example, stands for “laugh out loud” and is used to convey that something is funny.
Typing “TTFN” in an Internet chat context is equivalent to typing “that’s all for now”, “I have to go” or “see you later”. It’s used interchangeably with TTYL, which means “talk to you later.” These and other chat acronyms are used extensively in short messages sent via SMS or tweets, but are also popular in longer web communications, including emails and blogs.
TTFN can also mean other things in other contexts. The space battle game “Starfleet Wars,” popularized in the mid-1990s, featured a manned Earth-based Transolar Federation Navy, known as the TTFN for short. TTFN can also mean “tenured faculty network,” a common club or group on college campuses for professors seeking tenure.
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