Language is funny.

As a future teacher I dread the day when students use lol in their essays

Why would anyone use lol in an IRL conversation?

I say lol sometimes in real life. What are you guys going to do? Crush your pop cans at me in anger? LOLOLOLOLLOL ROMFLAMO!!!11111

Edit
In other words I fully endorse this decision, just as long as it isn't OVER used. That's when it can lead to problems, but if it makes sense in context then sure. Also nothing professional either, but that should be obvious.

Oxford FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU

contractions have always been a deduction in formal writing, so you should look forward to it, as it means you get to pull out the BIG F stamp ^_^

Picture the English class of the future where individual words make up only 50% of the working language and the other 50% are contractions that can mean whole statements.

I don't think so, every now and again there is a big hooplah in the news about this sort of thing being used in exams, but like my English teacher said back when I was at school, in subjects other than English, the language you use doesn't matter too much, as long as its readable all that matters is the content relating to the actual subject.
But in English you are expected to use a formal writing style, because, duh, it's an English class and that's the entire point, even using more accepted slang and colloquialisms would get you marked down.

She said that's pretty much always been the case, it's not a modern development.

I'll use another word that was recently added to Merriam-Webster's: Meh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCcZqcPOlNM

See you got it all wrong.

As a teacher it's more of a pain in the ass if I have to correct something a student did wrong. If the student did their work perfectly that's less work for me (ie I don't have to mark anything and it makes entering grades really easy).

Ergo you want your students to do well because that means less work for you.

:shakehead:

So I got through the first two pages, and I chuckled, to myself.

Take that dictionary; take that.

The intellectual in me is cryin' but the Texan in me who hates proper English is smilin'.

Though, I'm a bit confused with how "Barnard's star" manged to get added. It's the name of a star; what the hell is a proper noun doin' in there? What about "rotten egg?" That's a noun with an adjective. How about "Rubisco"? That's an abbreviation for Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase. Then there is "RUPP"... that's an acronym.

No it would be glorious, think of the amount of data being said with all of those contractions. Adaptation in action, wonder if there's historical precedent for actual biological evolution of human speech. Though I doubt there's data to go back that far, sometimes the only thing you can do is wait for science. Though this is a crack pot idea, would be neat to see if we are somehow evolving or will be evolving in the near future to use language more adeptly (though this would require something stopping those who can't use it as adeptly from passing on genes, pure hypothetical what if's). It might start out as lol right now, and all of this but it could be a gigantic advancement in terms of human communication.

/crackpot

Even better, at some point only the truly elite will ever write in proper English, everyone else will just be filling page after page with nothing but reaction faces, the words "lol", "meh" and [censored], and links to wikipedia articles.


OH WAIT

Be careful, considering lol as an advanced form of communication may make obsolete the flavor or chuckle, chortle, giggle, gaggle, exuding with humor, hearty laughter, stifled snickering, and many, many others.

I think lol is pretty nondescript if you couldn't tell.

Naturally there would have to be some sort of balance to maximize a verbal pallet, but at the same time allowing for a maximized communication rate. Or we could all just be robots and solve all of the problems.

I don't personally like it either but it's interesting that it's used as a term of communication, which obviously changes over time. Since this concerns communication and not just a mere definition, the joke is on those who want to use "proper English" when communicating with others. If anything one thing I do like about "lol" being a definition is, from a business perspective, it shows communication is becoming less formal. I hate formal.

Robots would work.
That would be cool.

I call RAcast.

http://www.geekosystem.com/heart-oed/

:thumbsup:

Is that some kind of computer memory that works better when it catches on fire?

Oxford is kinda late on that.... but I guess its betterer laterer than neverer.

Keep it up Gizmo and facepalm will be a word. You will be to blame. Yes, you. It is the people who use expressions that lead them to become actual words.

I can't see how you could use the acronym "lol" in an essay. I mean, in what context would it be applicable? Certainly not the essays I write. My lecturers would probably just fail you if you wrote down "lol".