In my first blogging experience which was with a small blog called Mo’time, I suffered an embarrassing faux pas. I say small for although the site had some 10,000 registered members, the active core was probably smaller than the number participating in the A to Z this year. Mercifully, somebody pointed out that I seemed to be misusing the abbreviation LOL which I had grown up thinking of as meaning Lots of Love and consequently, on many sad posts, I had apparently been Laughing Out Loud… I sometimes have to check with my grandchildren on the latest abbreviations in order to avoid future social accidents IMHO (In my humble opinion), this demonstrates the problem with texts, which are in any case a condensed form of communication compared an email or letter and it has been found that people are very erratic in interpreting the emotional tone of texts – perhaps because of their brevity. Apparently, this is what emoticons were invented to solve LOL replaced with a manic face, cocked to one side and spurting floods of laughter tears from both eyes. I am told by people whose young children grew up in the age of emoticons, that their offspring can have an entire conversation using only emoticons – perhaps this should be added to the Wikipedia list of Cant language that have become a feature of Blog this year!
Time for a few more Cockney rhyming slang examples Lady Godiva – Fiver (a five pound note) although the cognoscenti probably abbreviate it further – “That’ll be a Lady mate!” You see! Those pesky abbreviations again. Yesterday we had brown bread for “dead” but a Loaf of Bread means your head – as in “Come on Son – use your loaf!” (Just think about it Son!)
Other L’s from Cockney rhyming slang include “Light and Dark” – Park, “Lion’s Lair” the armchair where the head of the house might take a nap of a Sunday afternoon and woe betide anyone who wakes him up… “Loop the Loop” – soup.
We have five examples of “L” Cant languages from the excellent Wikipedia article on the subject
I think your LOL faux pas is sweet, and I hope the explanation was given in a kindly tone.
It most definitely was! However, I think we should start a campaign to reinstate the earlier meaning of LOL – perhaps tagging LOL with the appropriate emoji – a heart or a manic face with tears of laughter spurting out of the eyes…
Your LOL faux pas reminded me that it was created long before texting. I remember using it in AOL chat rooms in the 90s. So I looked it up, and apparently, it’s been around since the late 1980s. There was a whole list of online slang that included :), :(, and BRB for be right back, etc.
It is a whole language in itself…
Oh my goodness, I work in a virtual world so we use a messaging platform where we have to chat. (We really need to be careful what we type). I remember when I first started someone had typed “LAWL” and I asked them if they were from the south. (I thought they were using the southern drawl) Talk about embarrassing!
Cheers,
Barbie
Good guess IMHO. So what did LAWL really mean?
I somehow that LOL means “laughing out loud.” Don’t know how I learned that immediately, but I did.
There must be a dictionary of text abbreviations somewhere, because they are not all intuitively graspable or guessable from the context – I must look for it…
In texting the auto correct changes my meanings when I don’t notice before pressing post.
And I’m wondering what those “L” words up there mean. And what LAWL is, guess I can google.
https://findingeliza.com/
Lady Godiva always reminds me of the Three Dog Night song… which was actually written by Elton John, but was popularized in North America by Three Dog Night before Elton became one of the biggest stars in the world… which isn’t called “Lady Godiva” at all but “Lady Samantha…” I think I’m a bit delirious because I’ve fighting the flu for a week… 😛
L is for Layering
Hope you’re feeling better now, thanks for visiting in your delerium…
How funny that I’ve totally forgotten that LOL can also mean “lot of love.” Sadly, I think everyone uses it to mean “lauging out loud” that if I used it to mean “lot of love” they’d take it wrong. lol
Let’s start a campaign reclaim the LOL…
I often have to Google abbreviations, it’s hard to keep up with them all. LOL (interpret that either way)
Donna McNicol – My A to Z Blogs
DB McNicol – Small Delights, Simple Pleasures, and Significant Memories
My Snap Memories – My Life in Black & White
Younger people than I can text so much faster, but perhaps it’s also because they are bunging lots of abbreviations in, not capitalising or using punctuation marks. I am so slow by comparison, I figure I might as well do the whole thing properly…
Mum and her siblings used to break into rhyming slang when they were together, especially after they’d had a couple of drinks. I’d heard use your loaf, Brown bread, and possibly Lady (Godiva), but don’t remember the others.
That’s funny about LOL, though it must have been mortifying at the time. I prefer yours, too.
Thank you Josna…
This is a site that lists lots of text abbreviations…
https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/text-dictionary/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwlumhBhClARIsABO6p-ynae1sv8PvbVe6VYLGRZaJwQwlX4blNwa-EOv3pyTfwWS9Gz63dEsaAqEDEALw_wcB#l