General English words are the same. Slang terms on the other hand change all the time. Hell, look back to the 90s, who do you know that uses "Rad" nowadays? But I didn't grow up in the nineties, so I may be a bit off my rocker.

Its true... Not many would refer to a doctor as a "Croaker" these days, but should Slang be in an official language dictionary?

Don't forget that all capital letters should be removed from English language, commas and full stops as well ("lol" should replace full stops). Frankly, that wouldn't really surprise me given that a couple hundred years ago English was capitalised pretty much the same way German is today (all nouns were capitalised).

I think thats what urban-dictionary is for, the unofficial official web dictionary for slang, sayings, and other things.

throughout reading all the comments in this post, I was thinking the same thing. I am going to use it in a english paper, and if my teacher says its not a real word, I can now pull out a dictionary and say oh really?

Next up: A History Of Internet Slang In Modern Culture Pt. ROFL

More so than any other time in history are we seeing and using the written word, and you are actually shocked that shorthand is becoming more prevalent? I'm actually slightly shocked that you guys are responding negatively to this. Especially since most of you are around a decade younger than me. Just remember that this is your generation starting to make their mark on our culture.

Humanity: Making sentences shorter since 2000 :tops: (Random year. Dont destroy my mind)

And what a fracking horror it is.

The way I see it, LOL is not really that odd or surprising. If you can pronounce it, it can be a word. What's so odd about it? That it's an acronym? What do people think "ASAP" is? The only other reason that I can think of is that it came from the internet so that somehow makes it "unworthy" of being a real word.

Of course, this won't stop me from intentionally avoiding ever actually using "LOL" in actually conversation or online, and facepalming when I see/hear it being used.

And scuba, laser, sonar, napalm, radar, and so on.

Pretty much this.

I always wondered just how much I would grow to hate my generation when we change things, and this is just the begining.
*shudders*

Allthough I think my geeration could correct some mistakes.

LOL will probably become like those words. How many amongst us actually know what half of those actually stand for, let alone all of them. I'm sure I knew at some point, but over time I forgot.

It's not so bad that it's in the dictionary, there are plenty of acronyms referenced already. I just hope this doesn't encourage more peope to say it out loud, every time I hear someone say it I want to smack them across the head.

...Why... WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. WHY IS MY GENERATION SO svckISH! :banghead:

Hey! As a member of "Generation Y" myself, I don't appreciate you taking all the generation for yourself!

At the end of the dictionary.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lol is also the Dutch translation for the word 'fun' which I think is funny.

That's true, it does indeed change over time, but changes aren't always for the better, and when those changes mean that someone can actually say "lol" in real life while that person's words are still taken seriously, I'd say it's an example of change that is NOT for the better.

I dislike lol and such other nonsense internet non-words, and if they can't just vanish entirely from our vocabularly, they should at least be confined to the chat messages of teenagers too lazy to actually spell out proper words, not migrate into language that's actually acceptable in any sort of serious context.



Incidentally, I don't recall ever once saying ASAP in my life, though I've said what it stands for many times. I've never said what laser is short for, on the other hand, but the truth is, I don't know what it stands for, and even if I did, I doubt other people would know what I'm talking about if I said it. On the other hand, if lol ever achieves such a status, I will feel sorry for the people who speak it without even knowing the "word's" true nature.

Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Now that Oxford has gone there, I can at least feel better about using urban dictionary encyclop?dia dramatica.

Better? More acceptable?

So what's the real issue here? Is it because it's an acronym? Is it because it's from the internet? Is it both? Laser is an acronym-turned-word for the same reasons: People didn't want to say it's full meaning. Same with ASAP.

Lol

Damn you, Shifty! DAAAAMN YOU!!!

Well, lets put it this way... who would say "Laugh out loud." out of no where when having a day to day conversation with someone anyways? No one. If you find something funny, you laugh, smile, or blush. Lol was made as a way of presenting that over the internet, since for the most part no one can see you or hear you.

Your not going to be told a joke and just say, "Lol." your going to go, "BWAHAHAHAAH! DAWG, U SO FUNNY!"