Puneet Varma (Editor)

End of message

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End of message or EOM (as in "(EOM)" or "<EOM>") signifies the end of a message, often an e-mail message.

Contents

Usage

The subject of an e-mail message may contain such an abbreviation to signify that all content is in the subject line so that the message itself does not need to be opened (e.g., "No classes Monday (EOM)" or "Midterm delayed <EOM>"). This practice can save the time of the receiver and has been recommended to increase productivity.

EOM can also be used in conjunction with no reply necessary or NRN to signify that the sender doesn't require (or would prefer not to receive) a response (e.g., "Campaign has launched (EOM/NRN)") or reply requested or RR to signify that the sender wishes a response (e.g., "Got a minute? (EOM/RR)"). These are examples of Internet slang. EOM is often used this way, as a synonym to NRN, in blogs and forums online. It is often a snide way for commenters to imply that their message is so perfect that there can be no logical response to it. Or it can be used as a way of telling another specific poster to stop writing back. EOM can also be defined as the final 3 bleeps of the Emergency Alert System to know when the test is finished.

Origin

In earlier communications methods, an end of message ("EOM") sequence of characters indicated to a receiving device or operator that the current message has ended. In teleprinter systems, the sequence "NNNN", on a line by itself, is an end of message indicator. In several Morse code conventions, including amateur radio, the prosign AR (dit dah dit dah dit) means end of message.

In the original ASCII code, "EOM" corresponded to code 03hex, which has since been renamed to "ETX" ("end of text").

EOM is similar in concept to the EOF, or end of file. The EOF is placed at the end of a file to signify to the user where the end of file is.

References

End of message Wikipedia