"OMG! LOL's in the OED. LMAO!"

[HuskyPup]

Why did LOL infiltrate the language?

[bbc.co.uk...]

[Samizdata]

Why did LOL infiltrate the language?

Because a significant number of people adopted and used it.

That is how languages work, ain't it?

...

[buckworks]

I'm waiting for the day when "404" is accepted as a verb meaning "can't remember".

"My mind is blank, I'm 404ing that."

[wyweb]

Or 301 is sufficient for the Post Office to change your mailing address.

[Leosghost]

I'm amused that the "purist" interviewed used "kind of" and thought it was correct ..and not superfluous ;-) very -1337 he kan haz fail.

[weeks]

I'm waiting for the day when "404" is accepted as a verb meaning "can't remember".

LOL!

But, perhaps 404 should mean "I have no idea what to to tell you."

[Matthew1980]

>>I'm waiting for the day when "404" is accepted as a verb meaning "can't remember".

>>Or 301 is sufficient for the Post Office to change your mailing address.

>>But, perhaps 404 should mean "I have no idea what to to tell you."

I have a feeling that there is a book in this somewhere - "The Alternative Webmasters English Language"

Those a hilarious - and the office agrees :)

Only one thing to add to this really; LOL started out in the early days of IRC and chat rooms as "Loads Of Love", I clearly remember this from the early 90's.. (Not that I squandered my time in chat rooms at all, though IRC was/is super)

Cheers,
MRb

[Leosghost]

LOL predates the 90's ..and always was "laughing out loud" young 'un ;-)..there is a book/guide somewhere IIRC "sp33k 1337"=/-=?

[wyweb]

Another for 404, and I can see this in 30 years...

'Hey where'd you put my green shirt?'

'Um, it's 404. Sorry. Search.'

Meaning: I used to know where it was but it's gone now. Use our search feature to find it.

[wyweb]

ROF... 100 years from now. Important parts of language have been replaced by computerspeak.

Even kids are in it.

"Do that again and I'll DOS you and tell your motherboard."

"I'll go blackhat on your butt"

"That's MY toy. Do I need to DMCA you?"

We can probably get pretty creative with this.

[Old_Honky]

As the late Benny Hill used to say "What a road of old cobras."

I don't understand why it's a word. It is three letters; when I read it my mind reads "ell, oh, ell" not "lol".

If LOL is a word it is the only one I know which is always capitalised. What about other sets of initials like KGB (cudgeba?) or BBC (bubucuh?) Why aren't they words?

Will the next generation twerp spk (text spk)take this one step further and "acronymise" the acronyms so for instance "ROTFLMAO AFAIK TTYL STFU" Becomes"RATS"

[Leosghost]

FUBAR is also a word ..and has been for many decades.

MILspeak has given us many "words" ..so did CB radio ;-)

[Samizdata]

I don't understand why it's a word

I can agree with your sentiment insofar as I will never allow the word "LOL" to pass my lips (to me that would be doubleplusungood) but the fact is that a dictionary is merely a collection of words already in use by people who speak (and create) the language. If people vocalise "LOL" - and apparently some do - then it becomes a word, regardless of how stupid they sound.

It is not even a "chicken and egg" question - spoken words come first and dictionaries then record (not prescribe) them. To quote from the article:

"The death of the dictionary" is how one blogger greeted its induction to the bastion of English.

The word "blog" was first added to major dictionaries in 2005.

Many of us here had blogs well before that.

...

[Brett_Tabke]

did you know the word "alot" isn't actually a word? Yet lol is?

lol!

[Leosghost]

Quite a lot of people know that, not a lot of people would wish for it to happen either I suspect. ;-)

[rj87uk]

I have used 404 in a joking way with a friend of mine meaning "I can't remember" or when someone made a mistake it would be a 404 error. Pretty funny reading this conversion now... :)

[HuskyPup]

I'm waiting for the day when "404" is accepted as a verb meaning "can't remember".

Funny you should write that, me and my best mate have been using that since the late 90s along with some other things only known to us such as 400 when we're too busy, 402 when stood at a bar and 410 when leaving the bar!

[Matthew1980]

>>LOL predates the 90's ..and always was "laughing out loud" young 'un ;-)..there is a book/guide somewhere IIRC "sp33k 1337"=/-=?

@leosghost:-

Sp33k L33t <- not seen that for a while. I'm getting old now I think :)

Well the only thing I can say in response to that is: It must have been confusion, or assumption from other users, Metacrawler & yahoo IRC's (at least I think as that was the server used - it was a long time ago) were the ones in use a school at that point (unbeknown to the teacher) and I remember that it caused some hilarity when one of the class members received the message to say lol.

I hate text speak too - plain queens English is how I do it.

Social services often reply in 404, same as any council.

Cheers,
MRb

[Samizdata]

queens English

It's not the queen's English, it's the people's English.

I happily include our colonial cousins in that despite their idiosyncratic spelling.

...

[wyweb]

I happily include our colonial cousins in that despite their idiosyncratic spelling

Appreciate that.

[rj87uk]

Hope a link drop to dilbert is ok :)

[dilbert.com...]