Have you ever been around a bunch of people and found yourself inadvertently uttering net terms?
The other night I was at the neighborhood bar, and a lady told a funny joke. Everybody cracked up, and of course like an idiot, I actually said LOL. They looked at me like I was nuts. “What the hell does “ell oh ell” mean?” Tilt.
Another time, my buddy mentioned a friend he talks to on the phone a lot, but has never met.
I said, “Well, you need to meet her IRL (I are ell) dude.”
Blank stare…
I actually didn’t even snap until I said these things.
Time to turn this box off for a while…
I’ve found myself saying “lol,” but as a word. Also, “LART her” for a particularly nasty coworker. And I plonk idiot drivers instead of using my horn, mentally sending them to my killfile.
Honestly, I mean no offense to any of you but you guys might want to go and sit in front of the TV for awile instead of the computer. Now I have one high school chick I hang out with who will say LOL, but it’s on purpose. Apparently it along with other internet slang words are now common hip dialogue, I guess I’m not cool then.
I have heard and used other 'puter slang, but never chat slang. Heard one gentleman refer to another as having a rom drive running at half speed, and have refered to some co-workers as having about three lines of code short of a full OS! LOL
Count another one who does this. It does work better if you really sigh while saying it. In fact if it’s a big sigh, I’ll change it to “deep sigh”. Though in my defense, I’ve been doing this for longer than I’ve had my computer. On second thought, I’m not sure that’s a good defense.
My mother did it, so I picked it up from her. We used to have a running joke: when she did the “deep sigh”, I’d do a little sigh and say “shallow sigh”.
I’m not entirely sure why, but Ell’s above post just made me burst out laughing hysterically.
As to the OP, I sometimes say “sigh” when sighing and I’ve had to catch myself a couple of times before saying “laughing out loud” while laughing out loud.
I find that whenever I want to indicate that I find something very funny, I say that I’m ROFLing, and also I usually say BRB when I intend to return shortly.
My friend Randy is deaf. I’m not very good at signing, but I can get by. About a year ago we were sitting around “talking” and he signed something to me that I found completely unintelligible. I actually signed to him, “W, T, F?”…
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Then I had to explain it… jeez, that was hard.
No, I must be odd. When I read the abbreviations online like BRB, WTF, LOL, I read them as what they’re supposed to stand for. So “BRB” isn’t “bee-are-bee”, but “be right back”. Even if the phrases slip into real life, it wouldn’t be obvious.
I’ve been doing the “sigh” thing since high school. I think I picked it up from some of my brother’s drama friends.
I thought ell was funny.
What I have found myself doing is trying to use computer idioms in real life. Like trying to grep through a book, or wishing I could embed a hyperlink into whatever witty obscure reference I’m trying to make.
