Posted on

Lol/ROFL not AAP… WTF !!

In an IPL match last year, the commentator said ‘look at the little Pee Pee’….I looked at the the TV instantly and realised he was referring to Parthiv Patel, Hyderabad Sunrisers opening batsman. I wondered how would little Pee Pee’s parents react on their son’s new found name.  Seriously…Pee Pee?

A close friend sent a message ‘k’ in reply to my note saying that I would call in few minutes. I felt like replying ‘K for Kite’…as it is Ok is a short form for ‘all correct’ I thought but K ? How many nano seconds would you save by omitting ‘O’ from ‘OK’?

Shorts or slang has become a national obsession. First time I saw someone saying ‘LOL’, I got confused. Coming from Bihar, LOL was a short form of BAKLOL, meaning ‘stupid’. Little did I realise that LOL means ‘laughing out loud’…it was a great enlightenment. Apparently, LOL was first documented in Oxford English Dictionary in March 2011. Variants of LOL include lul, lolz and lulz.

Then there is ROFL, which apparently stands for ‘rolling on the floor laughing’…this is so down market. I mean, who rolls on floor laughing… I have never done that…never seen it…and don’t know anyone else who has done it either. Close on the heels is LMAO (laughing my ass off)…wonder how do you do that? How is A related to L? Any guesses?

LMAO and ROFL are often combined for added emphasis as ROFLMAO
(“Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off”)

‘See you’ is affectionately called ‘CYA’, which I always thought stands for ‘cover your ass’ (a phrase frequently used & practiced in corporate world).

I always associated AAP with a certain Mr Kejriwal (affectionately called ‘Crazy Wall’ by one of my friends) before I realised that it is an acronym for ‘Always a Pleasure’. Next time, when you hear (first thing in the morning) on radio ‘namaskar doston, main Arvind Keriwal bol raha hoon’ don’t get irritated – say ‘always a pleasure’ (AAP) 🙂

‘BC’ is an acronym for ‘because’….people from North India would never agree with that….be careful…and when we were children it meant ‘before Christ’.

Views are however divided on use of slangs or acronyms. The fast and furious young guns obviously believe that this is cool way of communicating. Its trendy, takes little time and easily understood.

The academic oriented folks don’t approve of its excessive usage.

Laccetti (professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of Technology) and Molski predict reduced chances of employment for people who use such slang, stating that, “Unfortunately, their bosses will not be ‘lol’ when they read a report that lacks proper punctuation and grammar, has numerous misspellings, various made-up words, and silly acronyms”.

The other risk is that the recipient may not understand their meaning or worse still may mistake it for something else (greater risk with BC, CYA, lulz etc.). Remember, the earliest recorded use of LOL was for “little old lady” in the 1960s. In Welsh, lol means “nonsense” – e.g., if a person wanted to say “utter nonsense” in Welsh, they would say “rwtsh lol”.

There is also a view that use of acronyms may be viewed as not genuine. David Crystal asks “How many people are actually ‘laughing out loud’ when they send LOL?”? I don’t know but am sure that not many do the actual act when they send LMAO!!

INMO (in my humble opinion), a ‘good one’ or ‘he he’ look simpler and more genuine over ‘LOL’.

Would like to hear what U say… BBS (be back soon)…meanwhile if you
don’t understand any of these do remember that GIYF (Google is your
friend)…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *