DOTI (downgrading of text initialisms)

[James Smith]

Talking of shifting, am I the only one who recalls LOL meaning, sarcastically, "lots of luck" - or did I just never understand?

James D. SMITH               |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com   |whether we act quickly and
                                    decisively
                             |or slowly and cautiously.


--- On Sun, 11/28/10, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: DOTI (downgrading of text initialisms)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Date: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 4:23 PM
> The meaning of LOL shifted over time
> for different subgroups of
> speakers I believe. An entry dated 2005 August 10 at
> urbandictionary
> evinces irritation at perceived overuse, a catalyst for
> redefinition:
>
> lol
> It's original definition was "Laughing out loud" (also
> written
> occasionally as "Lots of Laughs"), used as a brief acronym
> to denote
> great amusement in chat conversations.
>
> Now, it is overused to the point where nobody laughs out
> loud when
> they say it. In fact, they probably don't even give a shit
> about what
> you just wrote. More accurately, the acronym "lol" should
> be redefined
> as "Lack of laughter."
>
> Depending on the chatter, its definition may vary. The list
> of its
> meanings includes, but is not limited to:
> 1) "I have nothing worthwhile to contribute to this
> conversation."
> 2) "I'm too lazy to read what you just wrote so I'm typing
> something
> useless in hopes that you'll think I'm still paying
> attention."
> 3) "Your statement lacks even the vaguest trace of humor
> but I'll
> pretend I'm amused."
> 4) "This is a pointless acronym I'm sticking in my sentence
> just
> because it's become so engraved into my mind that when
> chatting, I
> MUST use the meaningless sentence-filler 'lol.'"
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American
> Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Benjamin
> Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: DOTI (downgrading of
> text initialisms)
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Thank you for the kind follow-up.
> >
> > Ultimately, I think this has to be considered looking
> at intra- and inter-speaker variation.
> >
> > One person I spoke with, about 25 years old, told me
> that LOL can be used for just about anything, from sarcasm
> to genuine humor. Because the initials "LOL" stand for
> "laugh out loud," there will always be people who use them
> that way, which then gives people the ability to
> differentiate social usage according to their interlocutor.
> >
> > I, too, noticed the switch with WTF, and quickly
> adapted it to mean LOL for certain interlocutors (quickly
> meaning I noticed and adopted it this year).
> >
> > BB
> >
> > On Nov 28, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >
> >> It's a useful concept to note, but I doubt that a
> trend like that can be
> >> dated with any precision. The problem is that you
> can only recognize it
> >> once it already happened and it's not always clear
> what to watch for as
> >> it's happening. What I said is old is the
> scale--from <g> to ROFLMAO and
> >> beyond (it might have been GRVVF, not just RVVF).
> The more you use
> >> chat/txt features, the more likely you are to note
> the frequency of each
> >> element. I was not a frequent chat user, but
> between 1997 and 2005,
> >> there was a marked increase in use of LOL as a
> generic response--so, it
> >> went from "very funny" to "I hear you" in meaning.
> Obviously, the other
> >> abbreviations appeared with increased frequency as
> well, although I am
> >> not entirely convinced that LMAO is now as
> frequent as LOL was 10-12
> >> years ago.
> >>
> >> My other point is that scale inflation is
> completely natural. For
> >> example, the more one uses expletives in his
> speech, the less expressive
> >> they become--in extreme cases, they nearly serve
> the function of commas
> >> and other punctuation more than a semantic
> function. When expletives
> >> become initialism, the transition is even faster.
> It's a bit harder to
> >> notice in writing, but, for instance, "WTF" is now
> as proverbial as
> >> "LOL"--everyone is perfectly aware of what it
> means, but it's now used
> >> in contexts where plain "fuck" would not normally
> be acceptable--if all
> >> txting initialism were expanded, most people would
> sound like Dennis
> >> Hopper in Blue Velvet. Another one is "STFU" which
> is not used in its
> >> more "traditional" meaning but also in the sense
> "You're kidding!" or
> >> the meek "I don't want to hear this" (but more
> frequently is the
> >> equivalent of "Bite me!"). But I don't think that
> scale inflation is
> >> limited to initialisms.
> >>
> >>     VS-)
> >>
> >> On 11/28/2010 1:36 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> >>> I rarely chat or use these initialisms, so I'm
> probably behind the times. I think I understood this
> downgrade a year or two.
> >>>
> >>> You say it's old. I looked in the archives for
> mention of this downgrade and did not find anything. Do you
> have an approximate date for when it started?
> >>>
> >>> BB
> >>>
> >>> On Nov 28, 2010, at 4:01 AM, Victor Steinbok
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I'm a bit puzzled by this presentation.
> Although I would not dispute the
> >>>> general "downgrading", in principle, all
> of the information below would
> >>>> be "new" if we were somehow stuck in 1998,
> Groundhog Day style.  I still
> >>>> have my email archives from the late 1990s
> that include all the
> >>>> initialism listed below and more. LOL is
> indeed the lowest (even though
> >>>> one friend still insists on using
> "<grin>" for being smug about one's
> >>>> own attempt at humor--not so much
> funny/not funny). This is followed by
> >>>> both ROFL and LMAO--perhaps ordered,
> perhaps not--and further by ROFLMAO
> >>>> that folds the two together. Some use an
> enhanced version that reads
> >>>> ROFLMAO-RVVF. I am not entirely sure why
> this is the top of the comic
> >>>> food chain, but RVVF means "running very
> very fast". The entire LOL
> >>>> scale was introduced to me--a chat novice,
> at the time--in 1997.  There
> >>>> has indeed been a LOL scale inflation,
> with each rung being less funny
> >>>> now than it used to be, but, as I said,
> none of this is new. The only
> >>>> change, as far as I can tell, is that we
> no longer use brackets to
> >>>> highlight the initialism--largely because
> both LOL and ROFLMAO have
> >>>> become so ubiquitous. (Note
> that<g>--which means either grin or
> >>>> giggle--and<grin>  still get
> the bracket treatment. There is also<@>.)
> >>>>
> >>>>     VS-)
> >>
> >>
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> >
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