LOL (also written lol or Lol) is a common element of Internet slang used, historically, on Usenet but now widespread to other forms of computer-mediated communication such as Yahoo and MSN messenger, and even spread to face-to-face communication. It is an acronym for "laughing out loud" or "laugh out loud", or, less commonly, "lots of luck". "LOL" is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms such as "ROFL" (or "ROTFL") ("roll(ing) on the floor laughing"), a more emphatic expression of laughter, "LMAO" ("laughing my ass off"), and "BWL" ("bursting with laughter"), above which there is "no greater compliment" according to Magid.

The list of initialisms "grows by the month" and they are collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries which are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication. These initialisms ...more