LOL

LOL. Most of us know what that means now. Now, it is common place. Laugh out loud.

But when I first started seeing it in emails, I thought it stood for a swear word . I 'd go through the list in my brain (not a big one...the list, not my brain) yet without the F-word, I was stumped.

The first time I read it, it was in the emails of the least funny or laugh-filled people I knew. Quite honestly, dour people. So I would try to imagine what LOL could stand for based on them. Something about being Out of Luck always came to mind.

When I later asked my dour friend what it meant she said laugh out loud, I was flummoxed. She hardly finds anything funny. She has acknowledged she doesn't have much of a sense of humor. When she has laughed it is like a rusty sound that turns into a weak cough. Nothing you really want to hear "out loud."

But what I notice with many I know who use LOL in emails, it doesn't seem connected to what they're writing or saying. I read along, " And then my son gave me a book. LOL. " So I stop dead in the reading, and wonder how is that funny? What is the circumstance or nuance I am missing as to why that is a laugh out loud moment? Sometimes I get the weird visual of my dour friend or whomever and can't imagine her laughing out loud, hence LOL had to stand for Live On Lonely, Luck Out Lover, or something.

Do we bastardize meanings like laughing out loud, if we're not laughing out loud? Is it used to supposedly let the reader know you are kidding, or to soften an insult, like I love your hair LOL?

When was the last time you laughed out loud, really? I rarely do anymore, yet I am told I have a good sense of humor and make others LOL...in email anyway. Or so they say.

What if you were a stand up comedian, and when you said a joke, if the audience found it funny each person would hold up an LOL sign, yet wouldn't actually have the energy or will to laugh out loud in person? The oddest thing to me is someone telling me what I just said was really funny, yet they don't laugh. She just smiles, wags her finger at me and says, " That is very funny." I'm not sure you can intellectualize funny. Either it is something that makes you laugh out loud or it ain't.

What are we saving our laughs for? Spend them now. Spend them everyday. Laugh out loud, in person, in public, with friends, with servers at the restaurant, with little children.

Let's be laugh-aholics and never go for treatment.