LOL (Internet slang)
Encyclopedia
LOL, an abbreviation for laughing out loud, or laugh out loud, is a common element of Internet slang
. It was used historically on Usenet
but is 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 for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ("laugh(ing) my ass off"), ROTFL ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing") or ROFL ("roll(ing) on [the] floor laughing"), and BWL ("bursting with laughter", above which there is "no greater compliment" according to technology columnist Larry Magid
). Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly historical "lots of luck" or "lots of love" used in letter-writing.
The list of acronyms "grows by the month" and they are collected along with emoticon
s and smiley
s into folk
dictionaries that are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC
, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication. These initialisms are controversial, and several authors recommend against their use, either in general or in specific contexts such as business communications.
LOL was first documented in the ′′Oxford English Dictionary
′′ in March, 2011.
) and Molski, in their essay entitled The Lost Art of Writing, are critical of the terms, predicting reduced chances of employment for students who use such slang, 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 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 in a study of online courses and how they can be improved through podcast
ing have found that these slang terms, 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 the various initialisms of Internet slang as convenient, but warns that "as ever more obscure acronyms emerge they can also be rather confusing". Bidgoli 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 terms 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, 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, 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 shares that view. So, too, does Lindsell-Roberts, who gives the same advice of not using them in business correspondence, "or you won't be LOL".
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".
Geoffrey K. Pullum
points out that even if interjections such as LOL and ROFL were to become very common in spoken English, their "total effect on language" would be "utterly trivial".
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.
, has been formally recognized in an update of the Oxford English Dictionary
. In their research, it was determined that the earliest recorded use of LOL as an initialism was for "little old lady" in the 1960s. They also discovered that the oldest written record of the use of LOL in the contemporary meaning of "Laughing Out Loud" was from a message typed by Wayne Pearson in the 1980s, from the archives of Usenet.
In some languages with a non-Latin script, the abbreviation LOL itself is also often transliterated. See for example Arabic لــول and Russian
лол.
Pre-dating the Internet
and phone texting
by a century, the way to express laughter in morse code
is "hi hi". The sound of this in morse, 'di-di-di-dit di-dit, di-di-di-dit di-dit', is thought to represent chuckling.
Internet slang
Internet slang is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites...
. It was used historically on Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
but is now widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers...
, and even face-to-face
Face-to-face
The face-to-face relation refers to a concept in the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas' thought on human sociality.Lévinas' phenomenological account of the "face-to-face" encounter serves as the basis for his ethics and the rest of his philosophy...
communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter
Laughter
Laughing is a reaction to certain stimuli, fundamentally stress, which serves as an emotional balancing mechanism. Traditionally, it is considered a visual expression of happiness, or an inward feeling of joy. It may ensue from hearing a joke, being tickled, or other stimuli...
, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ("laugh(ing) my ass off"), ROTFL ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing") or ROFL ("roll(ing) on [the] floor laughing"), and BWL ("bursting with laughter", above which there is "no greater compliment" according to technology columnist Larry Magid
Larry Magid
Larry Magid , also known as Lawrence J. Magid, is an American journalist, technology columnist and commentator. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Los Angeles. He received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate of education from the University of...
). Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly historical "lots of luck" or "lots of love" used in letter-writing.
The list of acronyms "grows by the month" and they are collected along with emoticon
Emoticon
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word...
s and smiley
Smiley
A smiley, smiley face, or happy face, is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly occurring in popular culture. It is commonly represented as a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth...
s into folk
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
dictionaries that are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication. These initialisms are controversial, and several authors recommend against their use, either in general or in specific contexts such as business communications.
LOL was first documented in the ′′Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
′′ in March, 2011.
Analysis
Laccetti (professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of TechnologyStevens Institute of Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA – founded in 1870 with an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens. It is known for its engineering, science, and technological management curricula.The institute has produced leading...
) and Molski, in their essay entitled The Lost Art of Writing, are critical of the terms, predicting reduced chances of employment for students who use such slang, 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 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 in a study of online courses and how they can be improved through podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing have found that these slang terms, 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 the various initialisms of Internet slang as convenient, but warns that "as ever more obscure acronyms emerge they can also be rather confusing". Bidgoli 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 terms 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
David Crystal
David Crystal OBE FLSW FBA is a linguist, academic and author.-Background and career:Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He grew up in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England where he attended St Mary's College from 1951....
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 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
Victoria Clarke
Victoria "Torie" Clarke is an American communications consultant who has served in several private sector positions and in three Republican presidential administrations, most notably as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Donald Rumsfeld.Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,...
, in her analysis of telnet talkers, 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 shares that view. So, too, does Lindsell-Roberts, 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. 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 typeMovable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
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".
Geoffrey K. Pullum
Geoffrey Pullum
Geoffrey Keith "Geoff" Pullum is a British-American linguist specialising in the study of English. , he is Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh....
points out that even if interjections such as LOL and ROFL were to become very common in spoken English, their "total effect on language" would be "utterly trivial".
Conversely, a 2003 study of college students by Naomi Baron
Naomi Baron
Naomi S. Baron is a linguist and professor of linguistics at the Department of Language and Foreign Studies, at American University, in Washington, D.C.. Her areas of research and interest include computer-mediated communication, writing and technology, language in social context, language...
found that the use of these initialisms in computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers...
(CMC), specifically in instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
, 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.
Acceptance
On March 24, 2011, LOL, along with other initialismsAcronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
, has been formally recognized in an update of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
. In their research, it was determined that the earliest recorded use of LOL as an initialism was for "little old lady" in the 1960s. They also discovered that the oldest written record of the use of LOL in the contemporary meaning of "Laughing Out Loud" was from a message typed by Wayne Pearson in the 1980s, from the archives of Usenet.
Variations on the theme
Variants of LOL
- lolz: Occasionally used in place of LOL.
- lulz: Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victimSchadenfreudeSchadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. This German word is used as a loanword in English and some other languages, and has been calqued in Danish and Norwegian as skadefryd and Swedish as skadeglädje....
of a prank, or a reason for performing an action. This variation is often used on the Encyclopedia dramaticaEncyclopedia DramaticaEncyclopædia Dramatica was a satirical open wiki that used MediaWiki software. Launched on December 10, 2004, it lampooned both encyclopedic topics and current events, especially those related or relevant to contemporary internet culture. It was frequently utilized by a socially fluid and dynamic...
wiki and 4chan4chan4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
image boards. According to a New York Times article about Internet trolling, "lulz means the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium." Can be used as a noun — e.g. "do it for the lulz.", shortened into "ftlulz" (to distinguish it from "ftl" - "for the lossFTL- Science and technology :* Faster-than-light, a speculative concept in physics and science fiction** Faster Than Light , a British video games company...
"). See also LulzSecLulzSecLulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, is a computer hacker group that claims responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from Sony Pictures in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline...
. - lolwut: lol + wut, used to indicate bemused laughter, or confusion.
- Lawl or Lal: Pseudo-pronunciation of LOL. Saying "lawl" is sometimes meant in mockery of those who use the term LOL, and is not meant to express laughter.
- LOLOLOLOL: For added emphasis, LOL can be appended with any number of additional iterations of "OL". In cases such as these, the abbreviation is not to be read literally (i.e., "Laughing out loud out loud out loud out loud"), but is meant to suggest several LOLs in a row.
- trolololol or trollololol: A portmanteau of troll and LOL iterated. Indicates that the prank or joke was made by internet trolls, or the user thinks the prank or joke qualifies as internet trolling.
- LMAO: For "Laughing my ass off". Variant: LMFAO ("Laughing my fucking ass off").
- ROFL: For "Rolling on the floor laughing". It is often combined with LMAO for added emphasis as ROFLMAO ("Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off"). Variant: ROTFL.
- Roflcopter: A portmanteau of ROFL and helicopterHelicopterA helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
and popularized by the website www.roflcopter.com. The website contained the animated gif and nothing else. The term was supposedly first used by a Blizzard EntertainmentBlizzard EntertainmentBlizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
moderatorModeratorModerator often refers to the chairman of a meeting. Specifically, it may refer to:-Government:*Moderator , elected official who presides over the Town Meeting form of government-Internet:...
in the Warcraft III forumInternet forumAn Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
in 2003. - lqtm: For "Laughing quietly to myself".
- *G* or *g*: For "grins". Like "lulz" it is used in the initialism "J4G" ("just for grins").
Commonly used equivalents in other languages
Most of these variants are usually found in lowercase.- mdr: EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
version, from the initials of "multe da ridoj", which translates to "lot of laughs" in English. - mdr: FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
version, from the initials of "mort de rire" which roughly translated means "died of laughter", although many French people now use LOL instead as it is the most widely used on the internet. - חחח/ההה: HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
version of LOL. The letter ח is pronounced 'kh' and ה 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. - 555: the ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
variation of LOL. "5" in Thai is pronounced "ha", three of them being "hahaha". - asg: SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
abbreviation of the term Asgarv, meaning intense laughter. - g: DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
abbreviation of the word griner, which means "laughing" in Danish. - rs: in BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
"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. Also popular is "kkk" (which can also be repeated indefinitely), due to the pronunciation of the letter k in PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
sounding similar to the ca in card, and therefore representing the laugh "cacacacaca" (also similar to the Hebrew version above). - mkm: in AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
"mkm" (being an abbreviation of the phrase "ma khanda mikonom"). This is a DariDari (Eastern Persian)Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized...
phrase that means "I am laughing". - 哈哈哈/呵呵呵: in ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, although 大笑 (da xiao; "big laugh") is used, a more widespread usage is "哈哈哈" (ha ha ha) or "呵呵呵" (he he) on internet forums. - ههههه: in Arabic is a repetition of the "ه" character meaning "Hahahaha" or "Hehehehe". "ه" is equivalent to the letter "H", while the "a" (or "e") is treated as an implied short vowel, and isn't written (as is standard in Arabic and Hebrew).
- (笑): in JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, the kanjiKanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
for laugh (笑) is used in the same way as lol. It can be read as wara and so just w is also used as an abbreviation. - ㅋㅋㅋ ("kkk") and ㅎㅎㅎ ("hhh") are usually used to indicate laughter in KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
. 'ㅋ', is a Korean Jamo consonant representing a "k" sound, and 'ㅎ' represents an "h" sound. Both "ㅋㅋㅋ" and "ㅎㅎㅎ" represent laughter which is not very loud. However, if a vowel symbol is written, louder laughter is implied: 하하 "haha" 호호, "hoho." - jajajá: in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, the letter "j" is pronounced "h" . - jejeje: in the PhilippinesPhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
is used to represent "hehehe". As in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, "j" is pronounced as "h". Its origins can be traced to SMS languageSMS languageSMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...
. It is widely used in a Filipino youth subculture known as JejemonJejemonJejemon is a pop culture phenomenon in the Philippines. According to Urban Dictionary a Jejemon is a person "who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility." The Philippine Daily Inquirer describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster who have developed not only...
s. - ha3: Malaysian variation of LOL. ha3 means pronouncing ha three times, "hahaha".
In some languages with a non-Latin script, the abbreviation LOL itself is also often transliterated. See for example Arabic لــول and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
лол.
Pre-dating the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and phone texting
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
by a century, the way to express laughter in morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
is "hi hi". The sound of this in morse, 'di-di-di-dit di-dit, di-di-di-dit di-dit', is thought to represent chuckling.
The word "lol" in other languages
- In DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, lol is a word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny") - In WelshWelsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, lol means "nonsense" – e.g., if a person wanted to say "utter nonsense" in Welsh, they would say "rwtsh lol"
See also
- Internet memeInternet memeThe term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...
- LeetLeetLeet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
- LolcatLolcatA lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat with text intended to contribute humour. The text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and its use in this way is known as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin"....