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LOL (also written lol and any other combination) is a common element of Internet slang used, historically, on Usenet but now widespread to other forms of computer-mediated communication, and even spread to face-to-face communication. It is an abbreviation for "laughing out loud"^[1]^[2] or "laugh out loud".^[3] "LOL" is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms such as "ROTFL" ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing"),^[4]^[5] a more emphatic expressions of laughter, and "BWL" ("bursting with laughter"), above which there is "no greater compliment" according to Magid.^[6] (Other unrelated expansions include the less common "lots of luck" or "lots of love".)^[7]

The list of initialisms "grows by the month"^[4] and they are collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries which are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication.^[8] These initialisms are controversial, and several authors recommend against their use, either in general or in specific contexts such as business communications.

Analysis

Lacetti (professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of Technology) and Molsk, in their essay entitled The Lost Art of Writing,^[9]^[10] 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^[11] 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^[12] in a study of on-line 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^[1] 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^[13] likewise states that these initialisms "save keystrokes for the sender but [...] might make comprehension of the message more difficult for the receiver", that "[s]lang may hold different meanings and lead to misunderstandings especially in international settings", and thus advising that they be used "only when you are sure that the other person knows the meaning".

Hueng,^[4] 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^[14] notes that use of "LOL" is not necessarily genuine, 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^[2] 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,^[15] 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^[3] 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. Lindsell-Roberts^[16] shares that view and gives the same advice of not using them in business correspondence, "or you won't be LOL".

Spread from written to spoken communication

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

"LOL", "ROFL", "LMFAO" and the 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" Template:PronEng or /ˈrɒfəl/ and "LOL" pronounced /ˈloʊl/, /ˈɛloʊˌɛl/, or /ˈlɒl/, 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.^[17]^[18]^[19]

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".^[20]

Conversely, a 2003 study of college students by Naomi Baron found that the use of these initialisms in computer-mediated communication, specifically in instant messaging, was actually lower than to be 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, 49 emoticons, and just 76 occurrences of "LOL".^[19]

Variations on the theme

Despite it being an English acronym, it is often used by non-English speakers as-is, even in other scripts (e.g. Hebrew: לול, Cyrillic: лол).

Translations in widespread use

Most of these abbreviations are usually found in lowercase.

L.o.L. = LOTS of LAUGH (Oxford Dictionary - C.S.A. ambiguation)
lal or lawl: can refer to either a pseudo-pronunciation of LOL, or the German translation (although most German speakers use 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 (笑う), which means "to laugh" in Japanese.
lolz: occasionally used in place of LOL.
lulz: LULZ is a corruption of LOL which stands for Laugh Out Loud. LULZ is often used as a noun — e.g. "for the lulz" ("for laughs").^[21]^[22]Especially used to denote laughter at another's expense.
mdr: French version of the expression LOL, from the initials of "mort de rire" that roughly translated means "dying of laughter".
חחחחח: Hebrew version of 'LOL'. The letter ח is pronounced 'kh', and it is common to put a group of them together (the longer the group, the greater the amusement) to transcribe 'khkhkhkhkh' (a sound of chuckling). 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 intensive laughter.
g: Danish abbreviation of the word "griner", which means "laughing" in Danish.
kek: Cross-faction rendering of "lol" in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Though most words are not translated directly across factions, "lol" is always faithfully rendered as "kek". When a member of the Horde says the word "lol", nearby members of the Alliance see the word as "kek". "Kek" is derived from the Korean word kekeke, which is used to express laughter.
bur: Cross-faction rendering of "lol" in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Though most words are not translated directly across factions, "lol" is always faithfully rendered as "bur". When a member of the Alliance says the word "lol", nearby members of the Horde see the word as "bur".
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.
kik: An easily-made misspelling of "lol" that is still widely understood to have the same meaning. On a keyboard, the "O" key is directly above the "L" key, which makes it relatively easy to type "kik" or even ";p;" on accident (as they are the adjacent keys).
In early 2008 images of Lol Creme, vocalist/guitarist with the British Art Rock band 10cc began circulating Internet forums, sometimes Photoshopped with his name on, sometimes relying on viewers knowledge of who he is.

Other languages

Lol is a native Dutch word (not an acronym) which, conveniently, means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny").

In Welsh, lol means nonsense, e.g. If a person would say "stupid nonsense" in Welsh they would say "lol wirion".^{[citation needed]}

References

^ ^a ^b Matt Haig (2001). E-Mail Essentials: How to Make the Most of E-Communications. Kogan Page. p. 89. ISBN 0749435763.
^ ^a ^b Louis R. Franzini (2002). Kids Who Laugh: How to Develop Your Child's Sense of Humor. Square One Publishers, Inc. pp. 145–146. ISBN 0757000088.
^ ^a ^b Michael Egan. Email Etiquette. Cool Publications Ltd. pp. 32, 57–58. ISBN 1844811182.
^ ^a ^b ^c Jiuan Heng (2003). "The emergence of pure consciousness: The Theatre of Virtual Selves in the age of the Internet". In Peter D. Hershock, M. T. Stepaniants, and Roger T. Ames (ed.). Technology and Cultural Values: On the Edge of the Third Millennium. University of Hawaii Press. p. 561. ISBN 0824826477.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
^ Eric S. Raymond and Guy L. Steele (1996). The New Hacker's Dictionary. MIT Press. p. 435. ISBN 0262680920.
^ Lawrence J. Magid (2001). The Little PC Book: Windows Xp. Peachpit Press. p. 287. ISBN 0201754703.
^ American Heritage Abbreviations Dictionary 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin. 2005. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Steven G. Jones (1998). Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Community and Technology. Sage Publications Inc. p. 52. ISBN 0761914625.
^ Silvio Lacetti and Scott Molsk (2003-09-06). "Cost of poor writing no laughing matter". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ "Article co-authored by Stevens professor and student garners nationwide attention from business, academia" (Press release). Stevens Institute of Technology. 2003-10-22. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Shirley H. Fondiller and Barbara J. Nerone (2007). Health Professionals Style Manual. Springer Publishing Company. p. 98. ISBN 0826102077.
^ Frank Yunker and Stephen Barry. "Threaded Podcasting: The Evolution of On-Line Learning". In Dan Remenyi (ed.). Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, Université du Québec à Montréal, 22-23 June 2006. Academic Conferences Limited. p. 516. ISBN 1905305222. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)
^ Hossein Bidgoli (2004). The Internet Encyclopedia. John Wiley and Sons. p. 277. ISBN 0471222011.
^ David Crystal (2001-09-20). Language and the Internet. Cambridge University Press. p. 34. ISBN 0-521-80212-1. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Victoria Clarke (2002-01-30). "Internet English: an analysis of the variety of language used on Telnet talkers" (PDF). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts. Strategic Business Letters and E-Mail. Houghton Mifflin. p. 289. ISBN 0618448330.
^ Neda Ulaby (2006-02-18). "OMG: IM Slang Is Invading Everyday English". Digital Culture. National Public Radio. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ jadedlistener (2006-02-25). "OMG, that's, like, so uninteresting!". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ ^a ^b Kristen Philipkoski (2005-02-22). "The Web Not the Death of Language". Wired News. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Geoffrey K. Pullum (2005-01-23). "English in Deep Trouble?". Language Log. Retrieved 2007-05-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ FOX11. "Anonymous on FOX11" (video). pp. 1:56. Retrieved 2008-03-03. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ Dibbell, Julian. "Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World". Wired. Retrieved 2008-03-23. "We do it for the lulz," ^ban^ says — for laughs.

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 * bur: Cross-faction rendering of "lol" in the [[MMORPG]] ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. Though most words are not translated directly across factions, "lol" is always faithfully rendered as "bur". When a member of the Alliance says the word "lol", nearby members of the Horde see the word as "bur".
 *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.
 *kik: An easily-made misspelling of "lol" that is still widely understood to have the same meaning. On a keyboard, the "O" key is directly above the "L" key, which makes it relatively easy to type "kik" or even ";p;" on accident (as they are the adjacent keys).
 *In early [[2008]] images of [[Lol Creme]], vocalist/guitarist with the [[British]] [[Art Rock]] band [[10cc]] began circulating Internet forums, sometimes Photoshopped with his name on, sometimes relying on viewers knowledge of who he is.