What Is 'OATUS'? What Does OATUS Mean?

Question: What Is 'OATUS'? What Does OATUS Mean?

Answer: "OATUS" is "On a Totally Unrelated Subject". This is internet shorthand for changing the topic of conversation. OATUS is commonly used in online chatting, where a current conversation topic been evolving for several minutes, but you wish to change the direction of the conversation on a whim, often because something just occured to you.

Example of OATUS usage:

• (User 1) I don't care what Steve Jobs says, Apple is hardware-locking us *and* they refuse to acknowledge that we want to have Flash and USB ports.
• (User 2) Yeah, but Apple still makes the best cell phones and slate tablets. And you can get hardware to give you USB ports.
• (User 3) Guys, OATUS: I need some help with my Firefox.
• (User 2) Is something wrong with your Firefox?
• (User 3) Unsure. It keeps giving me an error message when I try to log into my Hotmail.

Another example of OATUS usage:

• (User 1, instant message) I told you not to use Windows Media Player. That software is a memory hog.
• (User 2) But I like wmp. It's much more intuitive than VLC or WinAmp for playing movies.
• (User 1) Ooooo, OATUS: did you see the trailer for the third Batman movie? Wow, Chris Nolan is directing it!

The OATUS expression, like many cultural curiousities of the Internet, is a part of modern English communication.

Read more Internet abbreviations and shorthand expressions...