Newbie Question

[ACB312]

I'm relatively new to the Answerbank and am fascinated by the scope of questions and answers but I am puzzled by many people using lol as part of their answer. I thought it meant 'laughing out loud' or 'loads of love' but these seem out of context in many cases. Can anybody enlighten me? Thanks in anticipation, I realise this may be better asked in Phrases & Sayings but it appears quite a lot in here.

[*Zeus*]

I thought it meant laugh Out loud...there are some sinonims on here I dont understand though

[helliebobs]

It does generally mean 'Laugh Out Loud' and you'll find it's used loads on this sight cos everyone is so funny!!

[CompNut]

Hi ACB,
why not google / look up :
http://www.anapsid.org/internet/smileys.html

I asked the same question as you have when I first got onto AnswerBank, and was advised to look that website up.
It contains everything you need to know about abbrev. used in Email and Posts, plus smileys.

Good luck.

[ACB312]

Thank you Compnut - your link is excellent and Laughing Out Loud appears to be the answer but I still reckon it appears to be used out of context in some answers. Maybe I'm just being a bit pedantic in the correc use of the language.

[ACB312]

Oops - add a 't' after the correc.......

[*Zeus*]

sorry RoaldoM....I tried to look clever...and failed miserably.....

[jno]

people do have a tendency to laugh out loud at their own posts... it's partly because posting on a site like this can get conversational, and yet there's no type equivalent of the smile or the twinkle in the eye that say 'I'm joking' when you write something apparently silly or objectionable. So people write lol to make it clear that they're being light-hearted if not downright jokey, and that no offence is intended. Doesn't actually have to be hilarious.

[Azimov]

Jno pretty much said it all!
We tend to sign off or suffix our sentences with "lol" (Laugh out loud) to ensure that our comments aren't taken too seriously!
As Jno intimated, it's difficult to convey any kind of emotion in our little diatribes so we tend to use Internet shorthand to help the process along.
A little "lol" here or a "lmao" (laugh my @ss off) there, goes a long way to convey the poster's intended tone!

I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough.
There aren't so many in common usage that you won't be able to catch on soon!

[ACB312]

Thank you jno and Asimov. I'll read the answers with the appropriate tounge in cheek.

[waimarie]

And I've always thought it meant 'lots of love', aw shucks.

[Quizmonster]

Surely it stands for 'laughing out loud'. 'Laugh out loud' is an instruction and as such...nonsense. As 'laughing out loud' it is virtually never true. Why? Because whilst the person may well have laughed out loud when the humour of the given situation first struck him/her, it is highly unlikely that - now that it has come to the point of typing out a response/comment about it - he/she is still doing so. Please ACB, don't ever use it!

[ACB312]

Thank you Quizmaster - I won't use it.

[ACB312]

Oops - Quizmonster that should have been.

[unruliejulie]

i use it because sometimes when things are typed, it is very hard to judge if something is lighthearted. Exactly the reason jno put across.

[Kay]

I thought it was " Laughs Out Loud"??

[waimarie]

I think I prefer lots of love !!

[*Zeus*]

Loons on Loose is more appropriate at the moment on AB in the last week or so.

[jno]

QM, if you're still reading this thread... I'm not entirely sure of myself here, but I suspect 'lol' doesn't really stand for laughs/laughed/laughing - that's what it initially derived from, but I think in txtspk, or in the sort of writing common on websites such as these, it's a word in its own right - a written one, unpronounceable, not used in speech any more than :-) is - and meaning 'no offence' or 'don't take this too seriously'. Any thoughts?

[Quizmonster]

J, I'm an oldster as you know, so I've no idea what young people are doing half the time. All I can say is that for every once I have seen 'LOL' used to mean "(You should) laugh out loud" I have seen it used to mean "(I am) laughing out loud" 500 times.
I wonder how people who think it's 'laugh out loud' would translate its more elaborate version 'ROTFLMAO'? To me, this stands for 'Rolling on the floor laughing my bottom off'...with an a-word in place of 'bottom', of course. Surely they must think that should read 'ROTFLYAO' for 'Roll on the floor laughing your bottom off'.
I don't own a mobile phone and never will...abominations!..so I have never sent or received a text message. Accordingly, you are probably right regarding the current usage of 'LOL' as a word in its own right.
I just based my earlier response on what I, personally, have seen here on AB, bearing in mind the fact that I avoid the verbal-diarrhoeic threads - ie those probably most prone to text-language - like the plague! Cheers