WTF ROTFL LOL - JK

WTF does ROTFL mean? I am truly not a prescriptivist, but I am still not LOL.


This past December, Language - The Journal of the Linguistic Society of America published a review of The gr8 db8 by David Crystal. I have not read the book but I have been meaning to mention my initial thoughts about the frequency of initialisms in texting.

The thing that annoys me most about the initialisms associated with texting is that the majority of the most common initialisms are not abbreviations for phrases that anyone I know actually used before the invention of instant messaging.

On the other hand, when I was coming of age and we sent messages that were not so instant ("Hey, please pass this note to so and so.") the only abbreviation/initialism that I recall using with any frequency was "JK" and we used the phrase "just kidding" in normal conversation on a regular basis.

Just sayin. (See, I am really not a prescriptivist)