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.

[jno]

Hi QM - yes I also have failed to get myself a mobile phone, I prefer those nice wall-mounted things that Don Ameche invented... regarding roflmao: it doesn't get used with quite the abandon lol does, which is one of the things that prompted my last post. People do actually seem to parse this before writing it, conclude that there's a 'my' in there somewhere, and use it accordingly; whereas lol has detached itself from its original meaning and now functions in a sort of non-lexical fashion like the hearts or Xs one might put at the end of a love letter.... sorry ACB312, this is possibly more information than your question required.