In 2012, we found out that a resident of Downing Street in London, signed off texts to a tabloid editor with LOL. He thought it meant lots of love, giving many an opportunity to quietly laugh out loud. I have a certain sympathy with this confusion, but I am deeply worried by what the consequences of this were.
Did he also send texts to his cabinet ministers saying something like: “Great job, LOL’’. Or to his wife: “Had a tough day, look forward to you cooking up a fantastic meal, LOL.”
I don’t know what he would have got in return, but it would not have been served with a smile.
Words used to mean different things. Hardware, software, clouds, apple, bites, mouse, net, crash, web, all these today describe items far from the original intent.
A sentence that could have been written as recently the early 1980s would have to be decoded into modern parlance: “I spent a weekend in gay Paris, the dusty old hotel room had a Mac for guests in case it was raining, a mouse, no web in sight, though cloud coverage was poor and I miss surfing.”
Then there is the strange lexicon of YOLO (you only live once), or YOLT (as James Bond might say), IDC (I don’t care, same presumably for I do care, or I did care). Really, ICCL (I couldn’t care less).
We now also know it is an Australian to blame for the first recorded use of the word selfie.
According to Oxford English Dictionaries, in September 2002, someone posted (no letterbox required) a photograph of his mouth on an Australian online forum.
He wrote: “Um, at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps … And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.” From such humble beginnings, it’s amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it.
But what bothers me is would LOL ever be appropriate in response?
If you ever leave home without your mobile, or are beyond range, there is a word for that: nomophobia. If, like me, you have an intense dislike of mobile phones, is it mophobia? It cannot be called phonophobia (a fear of loud sounds). If you fear sitting beside a man laughing loudly into a mobile is it lolphobia? You couldn’t make it up (YCMIU).
Tom Clifford is a journalist based in China
