Or Headesk, is it now? I’m not entirely sure anymore. The current run of expansion in the English language is a very peculiar one. Usually we see an expansion of language of this nature when we begin an interaction of some sort with a culture different from ours. First there is the addition of the words we use to name the new culture and it’s inhabitants. Then the addition of the words we use to describe them. Then the addition of their words into our language, typically in bastardized form, at least in English. And finally the slang that we pick up either directly from the new culture or invented because of the new culture.
However, this current round of English expansion/change comes about not as a result of culture exploration but more of culture creation and worst of all convenience. It used to be you had to have a damn good reason to just jam too words together and then cut several letters out of them, or create an acronym, but not now. Now we do this kind of thing all the time in order to keep us from typing so much, or to ensure that our text based conversations keep some semblance of pace with our verbal conversations. I used to not worry about this so much but a recent trend has started to disturb me greatly and that is the leap that text based word expansion has made into our verbal communications.
This again wouldn’t be too disturbing except that people have started to use a subset of the newly created words, specifically those words created to express emotion in a text based environment, out loud. People actually say “lol” out loud. Correct me if I’m wrong but “lol” is an acronym meaning “laugh out loud”. If that is the case then WHY THE HELL WOULD ANYONE SAY IT?!? Wouldn’t you simply laugh? I mean if something isn’t funny enough to make you laugh out loud then why the hell are you using the word lol to describe what was said.
I know it might seem trivial, but this is serious dammit! Laughter, and in fact all comedy, might be on the brink of destruction here! The problem stems from the use of lol being incredibly watered down, people use it in text based conversations as a way to move the conversation forward or to just say something if they have nothing to say. This only boosts the ego of the people who constantly get lolled at (I had to make up a past tense for the word lol and lolled won over). This in turn makes lots and lots of people think they are funny, which is a bad bad thing because only some of them really are. But those few funny people are typically lost in the waves and waves of crap being put out by the un-funny people who have been over-lolled. This was okay when it was limited to just the interwebs, but now it’s getting serious.
Now people have decided to bring it into the real world and use the damn word verbally. And it hasn’t slacked off either. People still overuse the hell out of lol when talking. I want comedy to stay good. I want comedians to be actually funny and not be people that got it in their heads that they were funny because of how many “laugh out louds” they get when talking among friends. So next time you find yourself saying “lol” out loud, stop and think, “Did I actually think that was funny enough to make me laugh out loud?”, if not then please quickly retract your “lol” and explain to the un-funny bastard that they weren’t really that funny and you were just being polite. Ego crushing is the only way we’re going to win this fight people, so lets crush some egos!
Actually “LOL” while was technically an abbrviation of “Laughs out Loud” is has since itself undergone an evolution of language. If studied from an linguistical point of view, the fact that people use it for reasons other than stating that they involuntarily laughed or found something amusing means that it has garnered a new type of linigustic meaning.
I’m not a linguist so I don’t know the technical terms. But basically “LOL” has become several different things depending on context. If someone says elohel to you they generally aren’t trying to actually state that you made them laugh, they’re stating that they find your comment amusing. Now the truth of that statement can be debated but that is on an individual basis. They might be simply using the standard socitial white lies that you use to make someone feel more comfortable around you.
Often time in text conversations, “LOL” is used more often as a “I heard your response and didn’t disagree with it” statement than an actual expression of amusement. Some might argue that emoticons would better represent this but we actually find that the lack of word (or in this case letter) use is somewhat offensive. So better to respond with lol than to respond with :D.
All that being said: I tried to fight ‘cool’ back in middle school. I hated it. I hated the kids who said it. I hated what it represented. It was stupid. Yet it is now a standardly accepted term in american lingo that you’ll find it regularly used in televisions by people of all types. I point this out simply because while I had less avenues to communicate than you do, you still don’t have enough avenues of communication to stop cool.
Plus you’d be fighting against lolcats. And as we all know the internet is made of cats.