LOL
(also written with some or all letters lowercase) is an abbreviation for laughing out loud
[1] [2] or laugh out loud
. [3] LOL
is a common element of Internet slang used historically on Usenet, but now widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication, and even face-to-face communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms such as ROTFL
[4] [5] [6] [7] or ROFL
[8] ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing"), a more emphatic expression of laughter, and BWL
("bursting with laughter"), above which there is "no greater compliment" according to technology columnist Larry Magid. [9] Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly historical "lots of luck" or "lots of love" used in letter-writing. [10]
The list of acronyms "grows by the month", and they are collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries that are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication. [11] These initialisms of this term are controversial, and several authors recommend against their use, either in general or in specific contexts such as business communications.
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LAUGH OUT LOUD TICKETS
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Analysis
Laccetti (professor of humanities at
Stevens Institute of Technology) and Molsk, in their essay entitled
The Lost Art of Writing
,
[12] [13] are critical of the acronyms, predicting reduced chances of employment for students who use such acronyms, stating that, "Unfortunately for these students, their bosses will not be 'lol' when they read a report that lacks proper punctuation and grammar, has numerous misspellings, various made-up words, and silly acronyms." Fondiller and Nerone
[14] in their style manual assert that "professional or business communication should never be careless or poorly constructed" whether one is writing an electronic mail message or an article for publication, and warn against the use of smileys and these abbreviations, stating that they are "no more than e-mail slang and have no place in business communication".
Yunker and Barry
[15] in a study of online courses and how they can be improved through
podcasting have found that these acronyms, and emoticons as well, are "often misunderstood" by students and are "difficult to decipher" unless their meanings are explained in advance. They single out the example of "ROFL" as not obviously being the abbreviation of "rolling on
the
floor laughing" (emphasis added). Haig
singles out
LOL
as one of the three most popular initialisms in Internet slang, alongside
BFN
("bye for now") and
IMHO
("in my humble opinion"). He describes these acronyms, and the various initialisms of Internet slang in general, as convenient, but warns that "as ever more obscure acronyms emerge they can also be rather confusing". Bidgoli
[16] likewise states that these initialisms "save keystrokes for the sender but [...] might make comprehension of the message more difficult for the receiver" and that "[s]lang may hold different meanings and lead to misunderstandings especially in international settings"; he advises that they be used "only when you are sure that the other person knows the meaning".
Shortis
observes that
ROTFL
is a means of "annotating text with stage directions". Hueng,
in discussing these acronyms in the context of performative utterances, points out the difference between
telling
someone that one is laughing out loud and actually laughing out loud: "The latter response is a straightforward action. The former is a self-reflexive representation of an action: I not only do something but also show you that I am doing it. Or indeed, I may not actually laugh out loud but may use the locution 'LOL' to communicate my appreciation of your attempt at humor."
David Crystal notes that use of
LOL
is not necessarily genuine,
[17] just as the use of smiley faces or grins is not necessarily genuine, posing the rhetorical question "How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?". Franzini
concurs, stating that there is as yet no research that has determined the percentage of people who are actually laughing out loud when they write "LOL".
Victoria Clarke, in her analysis of telnet talkers,
[18] states that capitalization is important when people write "LOL", and that "a user who types
LOL
may well be laughing louder than one who types
lol
", and opines that "these standard expressions of laughter are losing force through overuse". Egan
describes
LOL
,
ROTFL
, and other initialisms as helpful as long as they are not overused. He recommends against their use in business correspondence because the recipient may not be aware of their meanings, and because in general neither they nor emoticons are (in his view) appropriate in such correspondence. June Hines Moore
[19] shares that view. So, too, does Lindsell-Roberts,
[20] who gives the same advice of not using them in business correspondence, "or you won't be LOL".
Spread from written to spoken communication
LOL
,
ROFL
, and other initialisms have crossed from computer-mediated communication to face-to-face communication.
Teenagers now sometimes use them in spoken communication as well as in written, with
ROFL
( or ) and
LOL
(pronounced , , or ), for example. David Crystal—likening the introduction of
LOL
,
ROFL
, and others into spoken language in magnitude to the revolution of
Johannes Gutenberg's invention of
movable type in the 15th century—states that this is "a brand new variety of language evolving", invented by young people within five years, that "extend[s] the range of the language, the expressiveness [and] the richness of the language". Commentators disagree, saying that these new words, being abbreviations for existing, long-used, phrases, don't "enrich" anything; they just shorten it.
[21] [22]
Geoffrey K. Pullum points out that even if interjections such as
LOL
and
ROTFL
were to become very common in spoken English, their "total effect on language" would be "utterly trivial".
[23]
Conversely, a 2003 study of college students by
Naomi Baron found that the use of these initialisms in
computer-mediated communication (CMC), specifically in
instant messaging, was actually
lower
than she had expected. The students "used few abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons". The spelling was "reasonably good" and contractions were "not ubiquitous". Out of 2,185 transmissions, there were 90 initialisms in total, only 31 CMC-style abbreviations, and 49 emoticons.
Out of the 90 initialisms, 76 were occurrences of
LOL
.
[24]
Variations on the theme
For a list of words relating to for Internet laughter slang, see the Internet laughter slang
category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Despite it being an
English acronym, it is often used by non-English speakers as-is, even in other
scripts (e.g.
Hebrew:
???,
Cyrillic: ???,
Arabic: ???).
Variants of "LOL"
- Lawl or Lal
: can refer to either a pseudo-pronunciation of LOL
. Saying "lawl" is sometimes meant in mockery of those who use the term LOL
, and not meant as serious usage.
- w
: used commonly in 2channel, a Japanese equivalent of the acronym. 'w' stands for ?? (???, warau), which means "to laugh" in Japanese.
- lolz
: occasionally used in place of LOL
.
- lulz
: Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victim of a prank, or a reason for performing an action. Can be used as a noun — e.g. "do it for the lulz." This variation is often used on 4chan image boards. According to a New York Times
article about Internet trolling, "lulz
means the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium." [25]
- 5: Used more often similarly to an emoticon, at the end of a sentence, to denote something humorous. (See "555" below.)
- lolwut
: lol + wut, used to indicate bemused laughter, confusion.
- LOL
: "Lots of Luck."
Translations in widespread use
Most of these variants are usually found in lowercase.
- mdr: French version of the expression LOL
, from the initials of "mort de rire" that roughly translated means "dying of laughter".
- ????/???: Hebrew version of LOL
. The letter ? is pronounced 'kh' and ? is pronounced 'h'. Putting them together (usually three or more in a row) makes the word khakhakha or hahaha (since vowels in Hebrew are generally not written), which is in many languages regarded as the sound of laughter. The word LOL
is sometimes transliterated (???), but its usage is not very common.
- 555: The Thai variation of LOL
. "5" in Thai is pronounced "ha", three of them being "hahaha".
- asg: Swedish abbreviation of the term Asgarv
, meaning intense laughter.
- g: Danish abbreviation of the word griner
, which means "laughing" in Danish. [26]
- rs: in Brazil "rs" (being an abbreviation of "risos", the plural of "laugh") is often used in text based communications in situations where in English lol
would be used, repeating it ("rsrsrsrsrs") is often done to express longer laughter or laughing harder.
- mkm: in Afghanistan "mkm" (being an abbreviation of the phrase "ma khanda mikonom"). This is a Dari phrase that means "I am laughing".
- In Chinese, although ?? (da xiao; "big laugh") is used, a more widespread usage is "???" (ha ha ha) on internet forums.
- ????: The Arabic ????? makes the sound "ha," and is strung together to create the sound "haha".
- In some languages with a non-Latin script, the abbreviation "LOL" itself is also often transliterated. See for example Arabic ????? and Russian ???.
Other languages
Lol is a
Dutch word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means "fun" ("
lollig" means "funny").
In
Welsh,
lol
means "nonsense" – e.g., if a person wanted to say "utter nonsense" in Welsh, they would say "rwtsh lol".
[27]
See also
Look up LOL
, lol
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
References
- E-Mail Essentials: How to Make the Most of E-Communications
- Kids Who Laugh: How to Develop Your Child's Sense of Humor
- Email Etiquette
- Technology and Cultural Values: On the Edge of the Third Millennium
- The New Hacker's Dictionary
- Title Unavailable
- The Language of ICT
- "Credibility and Authority on Internet Message Boards", a Master's thesis by Ryan Goudelocke, 2004
- The Little PC Book: Windows Xp
- American Heritage Dictionary
- Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Community and Technology
- Cost of poor writing no laughing matter
- Article co-authored by Stevens professor and student garners nationwide attention from business, academia
- Health Professionals Style Manual
- Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, Université du Québec à Montréal, 22-23 June 2006
- The Internet Encyclopedia
- Language and the Internet
- Internet English: an analysis of the variety of language used on Telnet talkers
- Manners Made Easy for Teens
- Strategic Business Letters and E-Mail
- OMG: IM Slang Is Invading Everyday English
- The Web Not the Death of Language
- English in Deep Trouble?
- Instant Messaging by American College Students: A Case Study in Computer-Mediated Communication
- The Trolls Among Us
- Chat, chatsprog og smileys
- Welsh-English Lexicon