Hatrz gun hayt. Iz troo.
O rly?
- reads rest of thread *
Please tell me this is an epic woosh. kthxbye
Dey c mi LOLing, dey haytn.
What amuses me about this whole thing (which doesn’t really bother me, except in the comments threads when I kinda want to read what people have to say quickly and not wade through an acre or two of “congo rats on yr nawt sekund!!” posts) is that it’s not original to Cheezburger, and *nobody *seems to remember this.
Waaaay back in the dark ages (this would have been late 80s/early 90s) there used to be a thing on Usenet called “meowchat”. It was total Cheezburger-speak–people pretending they were their cats and writing long involved posts using this “language.” Here’s a “meowchat FAQ” I found on Google, but I can’t track down any of the old usenet archives (didn’t try really hard).
I remember thinking these people…well…really needed to get out more. Maybe it needed the addition of cute cat pictures to make it palatable, I dunno.
Anybody else remember Meowchat?
Ya rly. I spend more time than is probably healthy on Memebase and the rest of the chzburger site, and apart from a few short memetic phrases, the only place “actual” lolspeak is used is in that tiny little lolcat community. Everyone else realized trying to conduct conversations like that was really goddamn irritating and dropped it. The only reason it’s coming up in this thread is because the OP brought it up.
And why Bosshead?
I support this rant about the comments section of “I Can Has Cheezburger?”. The comments section of Failblog is most excellent - there are a lot of people who there who should be Dopers. The Cheezburger idiots who think commenting in Lolcatese is cool - they all need a good thump upside the head.
The Meowchat FAQ site linked to upthread reminds me of archy and mehitabel, and that goes back to the 1920s and 30s.
People aping animals for literary and comedic effect goes back a ways, so please unknot your panties over I Can Has Cheezburger. Srsly. (Although I will grant that the comments on ICHC are pretty fucking stupid.)
They’re better than the comments on CNN. Srsly.
Kthnxbai,
Bri2k
LOLcat language goes back a ways, even before the computer. Apparently around Martin Van Buren’s time, there was a fad of guessing deliberately misspelled initials. “All Correct” was denoted as O.K. It stuck.
Hah. I actually laughed out loud.
The only example in the OP that strikes me as being oddly worded is “dabs at mai soggy eyz”; I would consider “wet eyes”, “damp eyes”, or even “moist eyes” to be more common way of phrasing that idea. But I note that “soggy” is spelled correctly, so it couldn’t have been chosen because it was more fun to misspell than the alternatives.
facepawz
Wuz mistayk. Iz fail. I haz a sowwy - let mi sho yu it.
… u mad?
I’ll see your CNN.com comments and raise you YouTube comments. I can’t read those without having a stroke.
I prefer standard English, not leetspeak or any other -speaks. Heck, I didn’t do baby talk even when I was a baby, but inexplicably I adore LOLspeak. Maybe because I’ve the impression no one is trying for anything more insidious than amusing themselves and others.
One of my favorite flavors is LOLspeak used on foreign boards. Good mental exercise – English to LOL to Korean, and then back to English.
Archy and Mehitabel! I’d forgotten about them-- thanks MsRobyn.
i luvs dat site.
1 Ceiling Cat iz mai sheprd (which is funni if u knowz teh joek about herdin catz LOL.)
He givz me evrithin I need.
2 He letz me sleeps in teh sunni spot
an haz liek nice waterz r ovar thar.
3 He makez mai soul happi
an maeks sure I go teh riet wai for him. Liek thru teh cat flap insted of out teh opin windo LOL.
4 I iz in teh valli of dogz, fearin no pooch,
bcz Ceiling Cat iz besied me rubbin’ mah ears, an it maek me so kumfy.
5 He letz me sit at teh taebl evn when peepl who duzint liek me iz watchn.
He givz me a flea baff an so much gooshy fud it runz out of mai bowl LOL.
6 Niec things an luck wil chase me evrydai
an I wil liv in teh Ceiling Cats houz forevr.
Ceiling Cat, who r watchin us, u can has cheezburger.10 Wut yu want, yu gets, srsly.11 Let us dis day has our dalee cheezburger.12 And furgiv us for makin u a cookie, but eateding it, same as we furgiv teh kittehz taht maked us cookiez, but eated tehm.13 An leed us not into teh showa, but deliver us from teh wawter. Cuz all our base n teh pwnage n teh +1s r belong 2 U 4eva&evah, srlsy kthxbai.
You can also buy a published version, but it’s not as complete. Srsly.
If only B.F. Skinner were still around to do that experiment …
As anecdata, a handwritten sign at my workplace which read “No to haz takings!” was accepted without comment by everyone under 40 and deeply confusing to everyone over 40.
Trewly, da childrinz is da futurez.
I may be the first Brit to read this thread – it’s early here for a Saturday morning – and so the first to identify the particular flavour of lolcat we have here:
Vis Cocknee LOLCAT spik. Ai no coz e *finks *an haz cuppa
Finks and cuppa would be the same in Cockney eye dialect.
kthxbye
Cite?
Cute, but the answer lies in the fact that all of the lolcat phrases follow conventional english grammar and syntax. Their oddity comes from unconventional spelling and choices in verb conjugation and subject verb agreement. None of the lolcat sentences so far given are actually unintelligible to english speakers.