How Do You Pronounce Internet Acronyms?

Acronyms such as ‘lol’, ‘rofl’, ‘lmao’ and a variety of others are part of the online everyday agenda.

A thing I’ve been wondering for a long time is… how do other people pronounce it? I personally go ‘lol’, ‘roffel’ and ‘elmao’. You? L-O-L, R-O-F-L and L-M-A-O? El mayo?

Lasse Havelund on July 30th, 2006

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9 responses to “How Do You Pronounce Internet Acronyms?”

  1. labrynth responded on July 30th, 2006 at 11:17 am | permalink

    for ROFLMAO - Rof le mau :D

  2. Lasse Havelund responded on July 30th, 2006 at 12:12 pm | permalink

    Sorta the same as me then :)

  3. Edrei responded on July 30th, 2006 at 12:18 pm | permalink

    Actually…would you believe I read it out as the actual sentence it’s acronymed for? It’s just bad grammar to read it off like that.

  4. Paul responded on July 30th, 2006 at 12:19 pm | permalink

    I don’t pronounce them - however I sound them in my head like this:

    lol -> loh-lh
    lmao -> lah-ma-oh
    roflmao -> roffle lah-ma-oh

  5. Lasse Havelund responded on July 30th, 2006 at 12:21 pm | permalink

    @Edrei: I suppose–that’s how I’ve always pronounced them though.

  6. Jim Whimpey responded on July 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm | permalink

    I say, l-o-l, l-m-a-o, etc. I say the letters. It always bothered me when people said “lol” like “loll”. It’s an acronym, not a word.

  7. Ryan responded on July 30th, 2006 at 4:11 pm | permalink

    Actually, technically if something is an ‘acronym’ it is said as a word, i.e. ‘roffle’ etc. If you pronounce it L-O-L, it’s not an acronym, just an initialism.
    NASA - acronyn
    FBI - initialism
    Look it up!

  8. duckie responded on January 19th, 2007 at 12:41 pm | permalink

    I suppose the most important thing to consider is why in the hell you’d want to be using the bloody things in the first place. Allow me an ironic ‘lol. Lol.

  9. chimera245 responded on January 19th, 2007 at 12:51 pm | permalink

    I think I do pronounce the couple of most commons ones:

    lol -> loll
    rofl -> roffle

    but not LMAO. Any ideas for some of the others like IMHO, IIRC, AFK, AFAIK, TBH, BBS, BBL, and FFS WTF.

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