Fieldnote:
Mar 11, 2009 09:20:41 AM, WIFE wrote on an email:
What does “lol” or “l.o.l.” mean?
[DAUGHTER-in_Law responds]
Laugh
Out
Loud
Rolling
On the
Floor
Laughing
Laughing
My
A**
Off
Those are the 3 most common ways to say you think something is drop dead funny
The questioning message was prompted by an exchange between Professor and Wife as they disputed what ‘LOL’ stood for. For wife, this was obvious: “‘LOL’ stands for ‘Lots of Love’.” Professor was quite sure that it stood for “Laugh out Loud.” So Daughter-in-Law was asked for instruction.
Her answer is unambiguous, but a professor cannot let matters stand. Who says that ‘LOL’ stands for ‘Laugh Out Loud’? Does Daughter-in-Law settle the matter? Or is it ‘everybody’ these days? Was wife ‘ignorant’? Or simply not very powerful on this matter? And what is ‘LOL’ made up of, in any event? What are the contexts in which it appeared and in which the dominant mode of interpretation appeared?
Continue reading ‘LOL’: on the construction of a cultural fact