ok so ive been listening to a lot of HF lately and everyone is just casually saying things like QSL and QTH and QRM and honestly i have no idea whats going on half the time. i know QSL has something to do with confirming a contact but beyond that im lost. like is there a master list somewhere or do people just kind of pick them up over time? also some guys on 40m were saying stuff like 73 and 88 and i had to google 73 which apparently means best regards or something but what is 88 even. anyway i feel like there must be like a hundred of these things and i dont know where to start learning them all, do i actually need to memorize them or will they just become natural eventually

haha yeah the first time I jumped on HF it sounded like people were speaking a completely different language. you kind of do just absorb most of it over time honestly. the ones you'll hear constantly are QSL (acknowledged / confirmed), QTH (your location), QRM (interference from other stations), QSB (signal fading), QRN (static noise), QRZ (who is calling me), and QRT which means you're shutting down or leaving the air. those right there will cover probably 80% of what you hear in casual rag chewing. 73 is just the classic signoff meaning best wishes or regards, goes back to telegraph days. 88 is like love and kisses, mostly used between friends or romantically involved operators, you'll sometimes hear it said kind of tongue in cheek between guys just being goofy. there used to be a whole Q code book and the ARRL handbook has them all listed but honestly just hang around and they sink in pretty fast.

im basically in the same boat as you tbh, been licensed about four months and still get tripped up. one thing that helped me was just keeping a little cheat sheet next to the radio for a while. QRO means high power and QRP is low power, that one comes up a lot especially if you get into the low power operating crowd which is a whole rabbit hole btw. QSY means you're changing frequency which i did not know for an embarassingly long time lol. dont stress too much about knowing them all right away