I don't get the use of term 'lol'

[Anonymous]

I know what it means... But who laughs out loud 3 - 4 times while writing 2 short sentences? It feels so fake - dout the writer even smiled while typing the text.

/rant over

[zippyBox]

For me its mor about lightening the tone. Tone doesn't translate well in texts so there needs to be some way to say that you're not being serious. Like:

I'm gonna kill you lol
Vs
I'm gonna kill you.

Or

I feel like I'm gonna pass out lol.
Vs
I feel like I'm gonna pass out.

It may be just me, but I think thats the basic function of lol, lol.

[ceez]

I've read plenty of post on here where I litteraly lol'ed and when i post a smiley I realy am smileing. You might not want to know what's going on when I use the sex smiley though

[Anonymous]

"Tone doesn't translate well in texts so there needs to be some way to say that you're not being serious."

"It may be just me, but I think thats the basic function of lol, lol."

That last 'lol' made me even more confused.

You weren't serious with your reply :confused:

[Bowyn Aerrow]

The use of smilies: :tongue: :biggrin: :mad:

And the use of OMG, LOL, ROFL, etc are all to convey to the text a 'voice'.

Humans evolved for one on one, face to face interactions. We rely heavily on tone of voice, facial expressions and body language to convey a lot of meaning.

With text we lose a lot.

Its not like we write like writers:

"Its raining for the fifth consecutive day. I sure do love the rain!" I said sarcastically.

Instead we write:

"Its raining for the fifth consecutive day. I sure do love the rain! - lol"

The LOL tells us that you are not being serious, and most of us can tell that we are being sarcastic about the love of rain.


You added the bouncing emoticon to give us an idea how you are feeling. A lot of places do not have all of these emotes, thus people are reduced to using letters or text to convey 'hidden' emotion.

You also used /rant telling us you are merely 'ranting'. However I find it difficult to see this short post of yours as being a tirade, or your speaking or shouting at length in a wild, impassioned way.

Look up the word rant - it is not what you did. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rant

So you misused the word rant (you really didn't have a rant) and others misuse Laugh Out Loud....

:tongue:

[mrk2010]

I must admit sometimes I get a bit Loltastic :p

[Nick9]

And you felt like needing to stay Anonymous to ask this question? LOL!

I have a lot more problems with "kwim" "idk" and other short expressions I guess sometimes we need to accept that an unofficial internet talk is a bit different than the real talk.

[Anonymous]

Well... my x to english dictionary gives rant (translation to term I was looking for). Did look the link you sended but no idea where you got that rant needs to be long part - seemed to mean about what i ment... Then again we prolly shouldn't discuss term rant anymore. My dictionary seems to give different meaning to what you understand with rant.

Not sure what to say. I think I was happyer beliving people were exaggerating rather than that every second post here is sarcastic. (not huge fan or sarcasm)

[Nick9]

Not sure what to say. I think I was happyer beliving people were exaggerating rather than that every second post here is sarcastic. (not huge fan or sarcasm)

Oh, come on. That doesn't mean that every post with LOL is sarcastic. It can also mean, I am kidding, I mean no harm, pure fun, chuckle and so on

[spencer]

I have on occassion actually lol'ed when I typed lol I am usually at least smiling or quietly chuckling when I type lol but usually I type the much more adorable "xD" face. But I am the person who DOES tend to laugh a lot just by something being said over a computer. What can I say, I'm a happy guy and easily amused. Although, I ldo eave emoticons out of thread posting unless it's a lighthearted covnersation. But in a chatroom I have an emoticon at the end of almost every sentence which I know annoys some people but they'll get over it. :3!