Last update before I go eat!

[conuly]

There's a splendid example of linguistic evolution happening right here on the internet, on LJ where I can see it! Well. Not really. But I'm sure it does demonstrate some linguistic principle or another.

It's long since seemed mihi that using acronyms (like lol) seriously tends to be... not done, except by the AOLers. This is certainly debateable, and I'm not going to be the one debating it, so hush. However, a big trend (much like use of l337 by otherwise well-written people) is to use acronyms as a semi-serious joke. For a while, a fairly decent length of time, the best example of this was OMGWTF!

And then somebody had the clever idea to go one step further, show exactly how much this was being mocked. And thus we were given OMGWTFBBQ!

Within a few weeks of my first seeing the latter version, it was all over. The original died down, and the OMGWTFBBQ version took over.

Recently, I've been seeing still more expansions on the theme: OMGWTFBBQROFL!

Now we're getting silly. Really silly. But before that thought could sink in...

OMGWTFBBQROFLCOPTER!

*dies*

Interestingly enough, we've been going over this in my medieval Latin. Apparently, the ancient Romans started expanding their words - words were constantly taking diminutives until the diminuative was the normal form, and the "frequentative" forms of the verbs were taking the place of the original. Everywhere, the longer forms were prefered.

I wonder why this is?

Comments

[queengodzilla.livejournal.com]

I remember learning from Wikipedia.org (or SOMEWHERE, gawd! XD) that "OMGWTFBBQ" was a term used in IRC to mean "Oh my god, what the fuck!? Be back quick!" in reference to something amazing happening on TV.

But then it turned into barbeque because of bastardization.