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LOL, an abbreviation for laughing out loud[1][2] or laugh out loud,[3] 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 emphaticexpressions of laughter such as LMAO[4] ("laugh(ing) my ass off"), and ROTFL[5][6][7][8] or ROFL[9] ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing"). 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"[5] and they are collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries that are circulatedinformally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication.[11] These initialisms are controversial, and several authors[12][13][14][15] 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.[16]





Contents
[hide] 1Analysis
2 Spread from written to spoken communication
3 Acceptance 3.1 Lexical form

4 Variations on the theme 4.1 Variants of LOL
4.2 Commonly used equivalents in other languages
4.3 The word "lol" in other languages

5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading


Analysis

Laccetti (professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of Technology) and Molski, in their essayentitled The Lost Art of Writing,[12][13] 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[14] in their stylemanual 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 howthey can be improved through podcasting 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[1] singles out LOL as one of the three mostpopular initialisms in Internet slang, alongside BFN ("bye for now") and IMHO ("in my honest/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[17] likewise states that these initialisms "save keystrokes for the sender but [...] might make comprehension of the messagemore 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[8] observes that ROTFL is a means of "annotating text with stage directions". Hueng,[5] in discussing these terms in the context of performativeutterances, 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...