At some point recently, it really struck me how much I use "lol" in my electronic communication, especially texts and instant messages. Really, they're just littered with lol's and haha's, which I use interchangeably. Scroll through a texting conversation with the BF, and you'll find us loling at such hilarious things as the house being cold, getting blood work done, and eating lunch. I mean, really funny stuff. Margaret Cho funny.
Needless to say, I'm not actually sitting here laughing my ass off at mundane life events. The truth is that "lol" and "haha" don't really mean much of anything anymore, for me or for the many others who regularly inject them into electronic conversation. If something is actually funny, I'm more likely to use "LOL" or "HAHA." The lowercase versions are almost like punctuation. Even lowercase "lmao" is starting to lose its meaning, if it hasn't already. These are so normal to me that it actually jars me a little if somebody doesn't use "haha" or "lol" in their texts. It's almost abrasive. And god forbid they should end their text with a period. Then I'll just think I pissed them off. Sometimes, I'll even add "lol" to the end of a serious and very unfunny text if I think it might be too harsh. Logic.
It's generational, of course. I was weaned on loling on AOL Instant Messenger, and while I'm sure at some point it was meant to convey actual laughter, today it's just...there. Linguist John McWhorter wrote an article for CNN entitled "LOL isn't funny anymore" that touches on this phenomenon, and I think there's a lot of truth in what he has to say. He takes on the common idea that texting is destroying a generation's ability to communicate effectively and proposes that "lol" is but a "new grammar."
Take LOL. Today, it wouldn't signify amusement the way it did when it first caught on. Jocelyn texts "where have you been?" and Annabelle texts back "LOL at the library studying for two hours."
How funny is that, really? Or an exchange such as "LOL theres only one slice left" / "don't deprive me LOL" -- text exchanges often drip with these LOL's the way normal writing drips with commas. Let's face it -- no mentally composed human being spend his or her entire life immersed in ceaseless hilarity. The LOLs must mean something else.
They do. They signal basic empathy between texters. What began as signifying laughter morphed into easing tension and creating a sense of equality.
That is, "LOL" no longer "means" anything. Rather, it "does something" -- conveying an attitude -- just as the ending "-ed" doesn't "mean" anything but conveys past tense. LOL is, of all things, grammar.
He compares it to the oft-used "I know, right?" The phrase, like "lol," means nothing and contributes little to a conversation. However, it signals agreement and acknowledgment. Empathy.
He concludes, dismissing those who warn about the decline of literacy and language itself into a cesspool of lol's and jk's:
Civilization, then, is fine. People banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, but a code it is, to which linguists are currently devoting articles.
On the broader subject of texting and language, McWhorter delivered a TED talk that is quite interesting:
What do you want to kibitz about tonight? Or will you be too busy loling on your iPhone?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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