Nothing makes an otherwise-mature person seem "silly" more instantly than an LOL in an e-mail.

I don't even bother responding to queries that use "u" to mean "you".

LOL is up there for me; as Deirdre put it, it's a serious immaturity indicator.

Another one that has always bugged me is the overuse of exclamation points and question marks. Geez, people - one will suffice, thank you. What really irritates me is that this is not a problem restricted to emails and other online communication; in my line of work, I frequently get feedback on reports from clients in which they punctuate their clarification questions with three question marks. It's as though they don't think one is enough to flag the statement as a question, or it will come across as more urgent with three question marks. These are professionals working in government with, presumably, a university education. As my husband's late science teacher used to say, "poor Canada."

Yes, LOL is a bit much. ROFL is worse, because it's so obviously a lie. I don't mind the occasional emoticon, though. Some of the animated ones in skype chat are quite funny.

I'm okay with "LOL" in emails, because I like making people laugh out loud.

Sheila -- I share your concern about the overuse of exclamation points!!!!

Stu -- what does "ROFL" stand for????

Rolling On Floor Laughing.

What's probably the case is SICMQ: Sitting In Chair Masturbating Quietly.

In that case, one just hopes they aren't also in Starbucks at the time.

What makes me cringe-

white people using ghetto language, epsecially "diss" and "whup" or "you go girlfriend". Or white teenagers (in Idaho, no less) dressing like gang member ghetto trash. I want to give them all wedgies... or maybe I am just getting old and stuffy.

I always took you for more of a ROF-M-OL kinda woman Amy.

Nice girls don't finger and tell. (Of course, I would never want to be mistaken for a "nice" girl.)

LOL, ROFL etc are really the Internet equivalent of "like", "whatever" etc -- filler words or phrases that at first glance seem no more than a pause or a tic (or a compulsive burp) but actually reveal quite a lot in their linguistically gauche sort of way.

Stick LOL at the end of one or your own sentences and you mean -- I just made a funny joke, except I'm actually rather nervous it isn't funny at all.

Respond to someone else with LOL, and you mean -- I think you just made a wisecrack but I'm not entirely sure I understand it.

There's so much insecurity out there, someone should bottle it and sell it on eBay.

Some Internet acronyms can be quite clever, at least the first time they are used. Like everything else, though, the problem arises when they lapse into cliche.

Emoticons, I have to agree, are the enemy of civilization -- linguistic take-out from Burger King.

BOPLSICMQ (bunch of psycholinguists sitting in chair mast...)

I have more reservations with phrases like "linguistically gauche sort of way" than with "LOL" or other quick 'n dirty email acronyms.

Didn't you used to be bi-Lingual?

This is not an Internet abbreviation, but I am getting particularly tired of the expression "Just sayin'." Is this one bugging anyone else? It's the "it's all good" of this year.
And in Internet expressions, I frequently see the expression IIRC, and every time I forget what it is and have to Google it again. I guess my brain had enough memory for LOL and ROFL but couldn't handle one more acronym...

"Nice girls don't finger and tell."

But they do if they're lesbians.

Lately I've been getting a lot of emails from twenty-somethings that use "hehehehe" to signify laughter. I don't get it. And they're all screenwriters. Some of them are gigglers, but they don't write "hee hee hee." Some of them are chucklers, but they don't write "heh heh heh." They all write "hehehehe." It's gotta be some kind of meme they picked up on MySpace. (I am an explosive laugher, and if I need to signify in print that I have laughed, I go with a simple "HA!")

I'm still trying to figure out how to guffaw by email. Any ideas, Harriet?

Easy: g-4. Not so sure how to snicker, chortle or titter, though.

The real problem is, in cyberspace nobody can hear you laugh. (Or masturbate, but that's a blessing.)

>I frequently see the expression IIRC

That one's If I Recall (or Remember) Correctly.

Two really awful current speech-fads, much-loved by radio journalists:

1] The double is. "The problem is, is that George Bush...." I even caught Cokie Roberts saying that.

2] "For his part, George Bush asserted..." "For his part" is utterly redundant.

I'm with you on the white people talking ghetto thing.

By the way, a black woman can say "baby" like nobody can.

Whutchoo tawkin' 'bout, Willis?

Actually Amy, while we're at it, I must say your expression "perish forbid" sets my teeth on edge somewhat....

Lena,

I always think "Bwhahahaha!" works as a guffaw. Or just a straight up "Snort."

Beware the unspoken taunt of "Ha ha!", which to me always reads like the mean kid on the Simpsons.

'I always think "Bwhahahaha!" works as a guffaw. Or just a straight up "Snort."'

I think a straight-up "Snort" would be more like a chortle than a guffaw.

For guffaws, think of Statler and Waldorf on the old "Muppet Show." Those two elderly hecklers who always sat in their box seat, making witticisms about the acts and laughing about their own quips: "Blaaw-haw-haw-haw..."

I am too arrogant in my writing confidence to use emoticons. And few cyber-shorthand acronyms, either.

I just figure those who rely too heavily on either are simply just less confident in their ability to communicate with the written word.

With practice, many will get better. It's up to us obnoxious English majors and other writing geeks to provide them a model.

heh

Steve in Clearwater

LOL and the like are nothing more than expressions of forced laughter. They're things you use when you are obligated to respond positively to something that isn't funny, like your boss' jokes at a company function.

Stu --

The issue of "speech fads" seems really different from emoticons, "LOL," and all the other little shorthands that people are using in emails these days. As offensive as the "double is" may be, I think we need to cut people some slack as they're talking. Talking is probably a much more complex psychomotor act than writing.

But I thank you for inspiring me to dig out an old essay by Roland Barthes, who wrote (not "said"):

"A whole disorder flows through speech and gives it this self-devouring momentum which keeps it in a perpetually suspended state. Conversely, writing is a hardened language which is self-contained and is in no way meant to deliver its own duration in a a mobile series of approximations [...] The whole of speech is epitomized in this expendability of words, in this froth ceaselessly swept onwards, and speech is found only where language self-evidently functions like a devouring process which swallows only the moving crest of words."

If that sounds frilly and pretentious, just imagine what it was like in the original French! Anyway, I hope you get my point. Talking is an "on your feet" activity, and shit happens.

But I still loathe Cokie Roberts!

I hate "IMHO." Tends to be favored by pontificating gasbags.