“I LOLed on hearing the joke.”

“LOL! You did that?”

What is LOL?

LOL, the abbreviated form of ‘Laugh out loud’, is very common internet slang in today’s times. It is widely used in chat conversations and e-mails and sometimes, even in face-to-face discussions and hand-written letters. Instead of the expression ‘Ha!’ that was used in letters, more and more people are beginning to use the term LOL. It is one of the expressions commonly used in Instant Messaging to suggest laughter, the other major ones being ROFL or ROTFL (Rolling on the floor laughing), LAWL (Laughing a whole lot) and LMAO (Laughing my ass off). Sometimes, ROFL and LMAO are used jointly as ROFLMAO to suggest ‘Rolling on the floor and laughing my ass off). Smileys have been designed to connote some of these expresssions.

Though it is commonly used to mean ‘Laugh out loud’, occasionally it is also used to mean ‘Lot of luck’ or ‘Lot of love’. ‘Lol’ is actually a word in the Dutch language, which means ‘fun’; however, the ‘LOL’ used in Internet communication is different. It is an acronym.

There are some variations of LOL, used by people speaking different languages. The acronym ‘lal’ or ‘lawl’ is used by Germans. Sometimes, ‘lolz’ or ‘lulz’ is used to signify the plural of ‘LOL’. French people use the term ‘mdr’ in place of LOL. ‘mdr’ stands for ‘mort de rire’ which means ‘dying of laughter’ in French. The numeric 5 is pronounced as ‘ha’ in the Thai language. Hence the Thai sometimes use the term ‘555’ to suggest ‘ha ha ha’ in place of LOL. The Swedish use the word ‘asg’ meaning ‘intensive laughter’, while the Danish use the term ‘g’ as a short form of the word ‘griner’ which means ‘laughing’. However, these variations are not as commonly used as LOL.

The acronym LQTM is used to suggest the opposite of LOL, which means ‘Laughing quietly to myself’. In fact, LQTM is more accurately expressive of the laughter of a person on Instant Messaging or e-mail. However, the acronym LQTM is not as popular as LOL, ROTFL or LMAO.

The term ‘Lolcats’ is also gaining popularity in today’s times. It is a combination of the words ’LOL’ and ‘cats’. Lolcats refer to images of cats carrying funny captions.

LOL has already become one of the most widely used internet slang. It is fast becoming part of day-to-day communication as well.