What the Heck is a Lolcat and Who Came Up with the Atrocious Dialect?

I saw what is called a "lolcat" for the first time the other day (I guess I really am behind the times). While I have always liked cats and some of the images and sayings are cute, overall I was appalled to find out these lolcats have become such a phenomenon. There is no excuse for using intentionally poor grammar and spelling. At any rate, I decided to learn a bit more about this phenomenon.

According to Wikipedia, a lolcat is "an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak,” ”kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin” and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang. The name "lolcat" is acompound word of the words "LOL" and "cat".

After reading this I was even more appalled to learn that this supposed dialect has been given not only one name, but three different names. I guess nothing should surprise me in this day and age of chatlish.

Chatlish: The Language of Chatrooms

I recently joined a language forum called "Using English" and encountered an interesting new portmanteau word - chatlish. Chatlish is defined on the Urban Dictionary website as: "words or abbreviations that are used in internet chatrooms." I think a more succinct way to define it would be to say chatlish is the language of chatrooms.

Following is what the Using English forum has to say about chatlish:
"Please don't use 'chatlish'; this is a forum, not a chatroom."

Followed by:
"This is a forum for discussing the English language. There is no need to write formally, but this is not a chatroom, so please write normal English, with punctuation, capital letters and words written in full; use you not u, I not i, great not gr8, etc. Don't worry about making mistakes, which is normal when learning a language, but do please try to make your English easy to read."

Whether writing in a forum or a chatroom, or writing a text message, I wish everyone would take the time to write in "normal English," after all, chatlish looks like something a 3rd grader would use in an attempt to be cute.