Why is Out Of Office abbreviated as OOF and not OOO?

Let's rewind to the 1980s. Back then, Microsoft Xenix was the leading Unix OS...

2025-11-12

It's one of those quirks that makes you pause: Why do we say OOF instead of OOO?

Let's rewind to the 1980s. Back then, Microsoft Xenix was the leading Unix OS - yes, really! - and Microsoft itself was running its own mail system on it. This system had a feature to notify others when someone was unavailable, marked as Out Of Facility (OOF).

Over time, "Out Of Facility" evolved into "Out Of Office", but the abbreviation OOF stuck.

Why? Probably because it's easier to pronounce than "OOO".

🔗Bonus trivia: Ever heard someone say "Little 'r' me"?

This is a reference to the keyboard shortcuts in Outlook, which in turn were adopted from the Unix mail system mentioned above.

  • Ctrl+R (little r) = Reply
  • Ctrl+Shift+R (big R) = Reply All

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