Laughing Out Loud My Ass

I can't help but notice lately that a lot of young people (notably high school students)
seem to over-use "lol" in their emails. On a mailing list I'm on, someone named "Kier" (probably age 18) used "lol" twice in a recent email. More alarmingly few weeks ago I received email from a younger cousin of mine (age 13) who used "lol" in nearly every other line.

Here is where Kier is laughing out loud:

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Kierendral wrote:

> Just in case, I do qualify, lol, here's the info:

[snip]

> So uh, take your pic I guess, lol?

I'm dying to know if Kier actually laughed out loud - twice - while writing this email.

I'd also like to see a webcam of my cousin laughing out loud nearly non-stop while emailing me, because frankly, his emails are not that
funny.

I suppose it is possible that "lol" long ago took on some new meaning in the English language, no longer implying laughter at all, but rather, "lol" became a standard grammatical construct in email to imply... something... something that I'm not sure what it means and may or may not be connected to mirth at all.

Comments Individual Archive Index

June 9, 2004 05:01 PM, Maggie said:

Erin, you are so funny ^--^ kekeke lol!

June 9, 2004 05:30 PM, John said:

I'm glad you posted this. I suspected it meant "laughing out loud," but I never saw it next to something that was actually funny.

I peg this with smileys and the many other internet-fueled abbreviations (IMHO, ROFL, etc.) that I hate. Last time I checked, the written language got along quite well before them.

June 11, 2004 08:30 AM, Rick said:

Maggie's comment reads like my students' essays.

June 11, 2004 09:38 AM, Jay said:

I think that lol somehow replaced the comma when typing on the internet.

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