LOL! With Apologies to Lynne Truss

*inspired by a conversation about posts I've unintentionally stumbled across, not by reading any of the people on my sidebar.


My dear readers it is time for a little lesson regarding a certain informal usage. Admittedly, I am in no position to lecture anyone about the fine points of punctuation. I have a tendency to either sprinkle commas too liberally or hoard them as if they may soon be sold at $100 a barrel. In emails I tend to completely omit capitalization. I could defend myself by reminding you of the spill I took that caused bones to protrude from my left arm and mangled the limb severely enough that I had little use of the hand for months. I could tell you that bringing my poor, injured pinkie to the shift key was impossible and that would be true. However, my laziness with a shift key predates the accident by some years. If you have ever chatted with me in IM or even read any of the comments I may leave on your respective blogs you know I am quite possibly the world's sloppiest typist and the reigning Typo Queen, Her Royal Highness of Informality. Since Diana acquired a cell phone I have even learned to decipher and send messages such as "whr r u?" I am decidedly relaxed about the particulars in such situations.

The punctuation (though I will state my preference for the Oxford comma and my love for the interrobang even as I have an internal monologue over this usage of parenthesis), subject/verb agreement, capitalization, and even the concept of parallelism I will leave (let? leave? Oh my stars, I'm becoming angst-ridden now...and there go the parenthesis AND the ellipses!) to the E.B. Whites, the William Safires, and the Lynne Trusses of the world. I will set my sights on "LOL" as it is applied to formal writing (not to informal writing or to comments left on this post, mind you).

Now I must certainly admit I am known to use LOL as well as the myriad related expressions of amusement all the way up to and including ROFLMAO. There are certain standards I apply to their usage though and I am here to sort out any misunderstanding. On the occasions when I stumble across a blog entry composed by someone who seems to think LOL is some sort of punctuation mark I sit stony faced through the reading of their post, defiantly refusing to obey their command. When LOL and her kin are interspersed in a post as frequently as a Valley Girl includes 'like' or 'you know' during what passes for conversation I want to drive an ice pick right through the center of each O in LOL. I refrain since monitors don't work too well once you've done that a few dozen times over the course of a post.

An example: The kids did the cutest thing last weekend, lol. We got a new puppy and she is just so adorable, hehe. So we brought the puppy home and got her all set up in the kitchen because it's tile in there and I sure don't want her having accidents on the carpet, lol. So my littlest one who just got potty trained (thank God, LOL) decided since she didn't need her diapers anymore the puppy could use them until SHE was potty trained. LMAO!!!

Right now I want to kidnap the toddler and the puppy and hold them hostage until the author promises to banish LOL and its variants from her blog entries because she is dropping them more often than the puppy is likely to be depositing doo-doos on the floor. If I cannot find the humor in the anecdote without the neon sign of LOL then either I am bereft of a funny bone or it just isn't that amusing in the first place. It's also a bit immodest and distracting to be chortling through your own piece even if it is funny. Think of Pam Anderson in a swimsuit saying, "I have great tits, don't I?" You are now compelled to either answer truthfully and tell her the silicone in her chest at least distracts from the collagen in her lips and the air in her head or you are forced to stand there slack jawed at the enormous indiscretion.

Next allow us to consider the problem of contradictory tones.

An example: Some cold-hearted, pedantic lady kidnapped my puppy and my toddler, lol.

Were this to actually take place would those in proximity actually hear mirthful giggles escape your mouth or would they more likely endure your wails of anguish? I suppose if the puppy were especially prolific in pooping and indiscriminate in placement of said excrement, and if the toddler were particularly prone to epic tantrums, and you had some rather sociopathic tendencies yourself it is entirely possible such a situation may give rise to a gleeful cackle but it seems an unlikely convergence of conditions. In the first example you've insulted my ability to identify humorous situations. Now you try to confuse me by suggesting tragedy is comedy. Or are you the one who is confused?

Finally, I'd like to address the question of degrees as we cover the full range of titters to guffaws expressed by everything from "lol" to "ROFPMSLMAO!!!!" (rolling on the floor pissing myself laughing my ass off for those requiring translation of this extreme form). Frankly, if you need the most extreme form I intend to lock your incontinent self into a room with both the puppy and the toddler until you all manage to gain some bladder control and broaden your respective vocabularies. "ROFPMSLMAO" just seems like a band of chimpanzees got at your keyboard and tried to type out the Great American Novel. The very bland "lol" seems hardly worth using. It's like the sort of response some country club wife from old money would give through a plastic smile when she is trying desperately to be civil to Pamela Anderson during small talk regarding other synthetic attributes. With regard to "lmao" it would seem we are again faced with a problem of mismatched moods. If you were to truly be laughing hard enough for your ass to become detached or at the very least to be expending enough calories so as to diminish its size, I should think this would be a situation in which capital letters are warranted. If you are going to employ hyperbole do so appropriately.

I hope I've been able to clear up this small matter. Now if you'll excuse me I have a derriere that needs to be laughed off in order to fit it into jeans that will not cause any of the aforementioned responses at first sight.