to think that this is not punctuation?

[Kveta]

'are u free friday lol'
'want to play today lol hun maybe afternoon lol'
'you're babby is cute wen you home lol'

All genuine examples of comments I've read on facebook this week (on photos/status updates posted by various friends).

Since when did 'lol' become a replacement for '?', '!', and '.'?

I'm sure there are.

An argument FOR txt spk on MN? WHat is going on?

MrsBovery-perhaps you haven't got enough well educated people on your FB, to find that, but as you say, it is your personal experience, you didn't state it as fact.

kveta "down with the kids or something"... are you implying that we wear hoodies, say yo man,, and do a wickety woo with our hands... good gosh get a life

Do you think they are confused and think that lol stands for lots of love?

When I was a teenager, and 'txt spk' (which we also used in chat rooms online) lol DID men lots of love :)

*Mean not men

Oh no, not at all, Birds. I'm not really a Facebook user (I use it for a 'political' and an education group only) and I was speaking more generally.

Can't bear LOL.

As for "hun", my inner pedant always wonders why I am being referred to as a member of a nomadic and warlike Asian people who devastated or controlled large parts of eastern and central Europe and who exercised their greatest power under Attila in the 5th century AD...

agree with Kveta. Makes me want to go out with a shotgun.

I always though LOL meant "Laugh Out Loud", however some people also use it as "Lots of Love".

ROFLMAO and PMSL also annoy me - does anyone ever actually roll on the floor laughing, or piss themselves lauging? What if they are at work or doing the weekly shop?

by 'down with the kids' I suppose I meant 'want to be aligned with the lowest common denominators'. and what is a 'wickety woo'?

I have a relative who lectures in a large university in Scotland, who says that the standard of english in some exam papers is so atrocious that he has started marking people down for it. He has had students write 'lol' in some papers, as well as some other txt spk style abbreviations. So education clearly does not = ability to express oneself in a coherent manner.

rhino lol was used in letter writing, like swalk

I always thought Hun was a derogatory term used for Germans by the English and Americans?

I don't think it is anything to do with level of education, it is more that if other people are using that, you tend to do it too.

I love facebook and hate this kind of lazy posting. If you want to lose these "friends" without deleting them yourself, just keep correcting their posts. They will either change their ways (unlikely) or remove you from their friends list themselves. Job done!

kverta is one to assume that you are that old fashioned that you carve your words in stone

Rhino in the case of PMSL, sometimes it is accurate for those of us with weak pelvic floors and large babies sitting on them :o

rhino hun is short for honey...it is used as an affectionate term..dont know why is wasnt "hon".. may because of the pronounication of honey it was spelt as hun

From a sample size of roughly 400 on my Facebook page, I can confirm there is an almost direct correlation between a person's level of education and their tendency to use text speak. Or indeed to post fatuous chain emails about showing your support for premature babies etc. (because of course if you don't copy and paste the pink-edged picture of a baby dressed as a bluetit you are in fact absolutely 100% against babies, as a whole )

So there.

Death to the lot of them (not the babies).

I hate text speak with a passion. It makes me irrationally angry.

This doesn't make me old-fashioned either, I'm 23, I just like things to be written coherently.

MrsBovary you never fail to amuse and astound me. lol

I am against using text speak and diligently spell out all words in full with correct apostrophes and their there and they're in the correct context.

However, the Apple autocorrect renders all my efforts completely useless, particularly when it changed a text saying "gently rub" to "genital rub" in a text to my mum talking about getting a mark off her table :-/

doormat assume whatever you like :) just please don't do it in text speak :o

fondle "down with the kids or something" makes you old fashioned...that statement sounds like a throwback from the 60-70's

You're fighting a losing battle there doormat :)

I'm with the OP, I make it easier on my eyes by just deleting or hiding most updates from people who can't be arsed to write a sentence. For me it's the 'pmsl' or other ones which really wind me up. Just click on the 'hide most updates' button and job done!