Is it all in my mind?

[jb stanislas]

Noticed someone selling an acetate for GBP3,500.00 on ebay and not sure if it;s just me but I find it makes me a bit uncomfortable parting with that sort of dough when the seller doesn't use the correct spelling of "sought after" and uses a smiley face and "LOL" in his/her item description. Seems more like the sort of thing a teenage girl would text to her school friends. Isn;t there a proper way of writing when selling things and esp when it;s something of that top level of rarity/price? LOL's are fine but not sure if it;s appropriate here and I would think it detracts from his/her ability to get someone to press the BIN button.

http://tinyurl.com/k5vqar5

[toby.d]

Argh, is it all in my mind or is blue on red the worst combination to read? The whole thing's a mess.

[Cacapo]

Genuine and very very sort after. Has what appears to be a bit of wax which I never bothered to remove on the label, though I am sure you could get it done professionally lol

The world would be a better place if there would be more lols everywhere. What I can't stand are people replacing the act of actually laughing by just saying "lol" in a conversation.

[jb stanislas]

The world would be a better place if there would be more lols everywhere. What I can't stand are people replacing the act of actually laughing by just saying "lol" in a conversation.

Hmm..don;t think I've encountered that yet but if so, it seems that that generation has become so lazy and casualised, that they resort to that. It lacks real humanity, for one thing. Seems like a case of "can;t be bothered" or something.

[babycart]

I sometimes say lol or roffle in conversations. It´s not like it replaces actual laughter or anything. it´s just mucking about with words, which people have been doing for ever.

[Sonovox]

I sometimes say lol or roffle in conversations. It´s not like it replaces actual laughter or anything. it´s just mucking about with words, which people have been doing for ever.

ROTFLMAO sounds like the noise of speaking while eating toffee.

[spacefin]

lol shouldn't be interpreted as "laughing out loud" anymore, despite the literal meaning - it's taken on the role of a suffix suggesting a sort of humourous self-deprecation or mild snort of amusement.

i've seen some fairly illiterate people with some rather good records, so I'm not surprised, but I certainly would be apprehensive buying them sight unseen.

[Slim Jim]

[eclectiktronik]

Ebay: home of ignorance, narcissism, stupidity, functional illiteracy and bad grammar. And that's just the company itself! (resists temptation to add smiley or LOL here!).

It is pretty depressing to see that kneejerk Web 2.0 'OMG WTF' and text- speak in contexts where it does not belong. In ads or listings, it certainly does not inspire confidence.

[jb stanislas]

lol shouldn't be interpreted as "laughing out loud" anymore, despite the literal meaning - it's taken on the role of a suffix suggesting a sort of humourous self-deprecation or mild snort of amusement.

To my way of thinking, anyone that uses LOL more than once or twice in a short sms conversation or in an item description on ebay, immediately seems to me like some sort of airhead due in part because maybe they need to look like they fit into some larger social identity or norm or that they need outside approval of themselves as being a person who is "in" Same type of people who use "cool" to describe everything nice that they encounter. I wouldn;t send my effing hard earned money to anyone like that! It's bad enough paying s**tloads of money and getting overgraded rare records from well known UK dealers.

[Ian Townsend]

To my way of thinking, anyone that uses LOL more than once or twice in a short sms conversation or in an item description on ebay, immediately seems to me like some sort of airhead due in part because maybe they need to look like they fit into some larger social identity or norm or that they need outside approval of themselves as being a person who is "in" Same type of people who use "cool" to describe everything nice that they encounter. I wouldn;t send my effing hard earned money to anyone like that! It's bad enough paying s**tloads of money and getting overgraded rare records from well known UK dealers.

Lol

[Ronnies-Pockets]

Lol

Are you LOLing at his semicolon??

[ginghamkitchen]

I'm PMSL'ing at that.

In the olden days, a wheelwright or a cooper or a stonemason would have almost certainly have been illiterate. In the 21st century, where even some journalists can't spell or write 'they're' when they mean 'their', the notion that an e-bay seller needs also to be a wordsmith, a diplomat and safeguard the sanctity of the English language - as well as have records to flog - seems a bit much.

Eine and I were discussing 'London Labour & The London Poor' the other day, Henry Mayhew's book about the awful trades open to those in the lowest social strata of the Victorian age. We thought we might do an updated version. The Tosher, for instance, was a person who went into the sewers looking for coins or other misplaced items of value. It was a job that literally entailed rooting through shit. Would the updated equivalent be the carbooter / chazza / jumble sale hawk?

[babycart]

Has what appears to be a bit of wax which I never bothered to remove on the label, though I am sure you could get it done professionally lol

I reckon he´s signalling that he hasn´t a clue whether you could get it done professionally or not, and not to take his assertion that you can seriously.
It marks an interesting semantic development of 'lol'. It was traditionally a useful tag to indicate irony, sarcasm or humour - "I´m only joking" sort of thing. Marking this sort of statement has always been more difficult in print than in spoken conversation, where extra-verbal cues and context help comprehension.

Example: Record collectors are sad twats lol lol

Now it seems to be increasingly used as a waiver of responsibility for whatever is said. A kind of written hedging, that has nothing to do with humour, but arises from the non-serious intent of humorous discourse. .

I´m really enjoying my semantics course.

[Shere Khan]

I'm PMSL'ing at that.

I'm not an expert in this field but I would think that 'ing' is superfluous?