As of yesterday, I have given up the use of the shorthand expression lol.

What started off exclusively as an instant messaging curio in the dim and distant past quickly became prevalent in text language and over the years has diffused into other forms of communication such as emails and increasingly, even speech. A few years ago it was even added to the dictionary. Dark times indeed, huh?

Apart from the fact that very little these days actually makes me laugh out loud it seems its definition has been bastardised and corrupted to such an extent that it barely even resembles the genesis of the acronym anymore. It is no longer literal (if it ever was) and is overused constantly. Sometimes it is thrown in to a sentence as nothing more than an arbitrary placeholder, halfway between the capital letter and the full stop… then again, you’re lucky if you get both of those these days.

So, with that being said, here’s one for the road: