Whinging Wednesday - OMG, LOL, ROTFLMAO


I've reached a point in my social networking life where my brain involuntarily sets fire to my eyes when I see OMG and LOL.

whinge-image


Does anyone write messages these days without including one or the other? At first when they arrived on the web scene (when I still had to figure out what they meant) they were sort of cute and entertaining. Months later I was still ignorantly, blissfully convinced LOL meant 'lots of love.' After all, nothing about what was said preceding the LOLs was remotely funny. It's no wonder I didn't catch on. 


I mean, you'd think that if something was really 'laugh out loud' it would have to (at least) be amusing. With everyone signing LOL after messages and comments, I took it for granted that it was something similar to, xoxo, see you later, love you, etc. How many unfunny things do you see suffixed by the letters, LOL? Yeah? Right. My point exactly.


Then came ROTFLMAO. What? It took me ages to figure this one out. I guessed it had something to do with laughing. Not only because it had the letter L in it, but because people were using it in slightly amusing circumstances. Knowing the WWW as well as we do, we should've expected this development to come hopping along. Internet nerds have to move with the times, baby! They've got to be seen to be travelling onward and upward - onto the next level, ASAP. Nowadays, something that would've teased out a wry smile is said to be ROTFLMAO. (Roll on the floor laughing my a** off). You wonder how anyone's got any butt left.


lol_omg_rotflmao

Meanwhile, O.M.G! This blog post is the very first time I've used this term. First of all, I never say 'Oh my God!' I hope I'm never in such deep trouble to have to call out to God in such an urgent manner. Like with ROTFLMAO, everything on the Internet is of an urgent/intense nature, it's 'OMG did you realise it's sunny outside today. OMG check out these pictures I took of my pet gerbil. OMG, my blog post is LOL.' 


Frankly, I'm tired of seeing all of them now. Can't we get back to our little colon, dash, close brackets? Pretty please? xoxo

7 comments:

Dan Holloway March 3, 2010 at 2:23 PM  

Anne, you have no idea how much self-control it's taking to write a comment in longhand.
I'd be interested to know to what extent the internet is "to blame" for these things (which are, let's face it, handy for character-constrained places like twitter), and to what extent they started life in texting.
It took me ages to get my head round lmao - partly beecause I always read the "L" as "I" & got it confused with imho

Anne Lyken-Garner March 3, 2010 at 2:49 PM  

Dan, I don't mind longhand. What I dislike are these terms I mentioned above. Not *everything* can be funny.
Twitter is great for shortening familiar phrases. I've seen some which I'm yet to work out. Imho is one that took me ages to figure out.

Tamika: March 3, 2010 at 6:47 PM  

I'm lost on most of the shorthand. ROTFLMAO- didn't know until today what that one was!

I still text in complete sentences.

Write and Earn a Living March 3, 2010 at 9:41 PM  

Okay, I'm curious, what's IMAO??

Toby Neal March 4, 2010 at 7:17 AM  

I am trying so hard not to ROFLMAO.

hee hee!

http://hawaiiianorchid.weebly.com/blog-an-endless-fascination-with-stories.html

Anne Lyken-Garner March 4, 2010 at 8:12 AM  

lmao is laugh my a** off. It's not I. It's l (as in laugh).
Again with the butt thing. :-)

Anonymous March 4, 2010 at 3:32 PM  

I restrain myself from using these words, unless my comment might offend the author, then I put in a smile face..

But you've just solved the puzzle for me with ROTFLMAO..I couldn't figure that one out for the life of me..

Anne's a published author, freelance writer and experienced editor. She's just signed her second publishing contract this year with 2 separate publishing houses. You can hire her or see her available books in the side panel on the right.
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