"lol" - Do you say it too much?

Hi guys.

I'd like to bring to your attention to a topic I'm very interested in; language.

I'm an avid linguist and seem to notice and think about it a lot. Being a native Calypsian and frequent internet user (like most of us here, I assume), I am very aware of internet language use. Some years ago I was one of the many people who used terms such as "omg" and "lol" without a second thought.

A little history for those who are interested, as always:

As I began EU at age 13, I began to meet people who I looked up to. Two of these people were called Danny Valkor and Jenavian Weissmann. These two people had much more of an influence on me than they likely imagined and unfortunately I don't suppose anyone reading this will know or remember these two fantastic characters from EU's distant past. One day while talking to Jenavian Weissmann, a well spoken Roleplayer, I noticed that she (he in real life) always typed with capital letters and punctuation.

Due to my willingness to understand and my easily influenced nature at the time, it transpired that I brought up this very proper use of language into conversation. I really looked up to Jenavian and thought it showed some kind of "strength" to type without shortenings or internet slang. Basically, I wanted to be like him!

This was not as easy as it seemed. I noticed, when I looked at my use of language online that I used shortenings like no one's business. My goal was to eliminate all habitual shortenings and internet slang from my typing. The process of ridding myself of these parasitic terms involved quite a bit of analysis of every sentence I typed. One specifically parasitic term that had attached itself to my vocabulary and refused to let go without a fight was the term "lol".

"lol" is a very interesting internet slang word which I'm sure you know means Laugh(ing) Out Loud. The reason I never type it with a capital "L" is because the most common occurrence of it is simply without. There seems also to be a difference between "lol" and "LOL" in terms of whether the person typing it is actually laughing or even amused (funny how when discussing such a term, the question of whether the sender is actually amused has to come into the equation). Since my own struggle to rid myself of it for good all those years ago, I have been particularly sensitive to spotting its use everywhere. Recently I noticed that a friend used it a ridiculous amount in his everyday typing, once typing a short paragraph involving the term five times. This was a real wakeup call to me;

People, as I was, are in the position where they are saying "lol" unintentionally and are finding it hard not to!

My question to you, which you can vote for, is:

Do you say "lol" without even realising that you have?

Welcome additional info in your reply could be:

• Do you think it's a bad thing to have this "lol addiction"?
• Do you want to get rid of yours?
• Do you have any other things you say without thinking?
• What do you think of internet slang?

Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOL

 

Yeah khaos, that little fact is in the Wikipedia page for "LOL" but thanks for bringing it to the thread :)

Quote Wikipedia:

"Other languages

Lol is a Dutch word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny")."