adj.
A contraction (ussually used verbally) of "as of now".
If something is true asof, it
will eventually not be true, given time. "Asof" shows that the statement given
will become obsoleted, which is marvellously useful in the age of the
internet, where a conversation may span months or even years.
When used in present tense it ussually refers to the "now". It can also, when used in
future or past tense, refer to a "then": "I had
two cats asof".
The utility of this phrase comes because it shortens a subordinate clause (which can only be used between commas, or these very parantheses) into an adjective. This allows faster speech and faster typing (on mobile, especially).
Alternate spelling are "as of" or "as-of". "As of" is not prefered because the dosens of definitions both "as" and "of" have can lead to
confusion or ambiguity, and can be misinterpreted for bad
grammar or a typo. Always signify in some way that "as of" is one word (by using a hyphen, italics, quotation marks, concatenation, or any other fit method). The hyphenated spelling plays nicer with standard
English, and I would recommend it if you wanted to pass this bit of
slang under the radar.
The example is my own. I use "asof" to remind readers (especially from the futures) of the time context I am writing in. By using "asof" instead of as of now", I don't give undue focus on the "now" by putting it in its own clause, but retain the reader'
s focus solely on the subject of the sentence: the latest release.