Down with ROFL

8:56 AM 0 Comments

Two posts in one day! Take that Stu! That'll teach you to take me off your link list!

So I do a lot of IMing and as anyone who instant messages much, I've picked up several abbreviations that I use: brb is "be right back," IMO is "in my opinion," IMHO is the ridiculous version of IMO and stands for "in my honest opinion" (can you have a dishonest opinion?) and of course when something is funny there's lol or "laugh out loud." If something is really funny (or moderately funny for Steve Lyon) then you type ROFL which is "rolling on the floor laughing."

I can't speak for everyone, but I very rarely laugh out loud when I'm just reading something. In fact, even in really funny movies I rarely laugh out loud. And the last time I can remember rolling on the floor laughing was as a small child when my dad would tickle me 'till I couldn't breath (if you want to lol about this then listen to Dane Cook's bit on tickling).

For people like me, I'd like to introduce a new abbreviation that I for one am going to start using: ctm. It stands for "chuckling to myself." Sure, it might be kind of a pain at first as I have to explain it to everyone, but I only have a total of like 40-50 people in my messenger list and I only really IM regularly with maybe half those and then only half again ever type anything to make me ctm, so it won't be so bad. Maybe I'll just create a macro command that automatically pastes a link to this post so I don't have to type the explanation everytime.

Anyway, from now on, I'm standing for honesty in IM abbreviations. If I type ctm in an IM to you, you made me smile and chuckle to myself. If I type lol, you'll know you said something really funny that made me actually laugh out loud. And if you catch me typing ROFL then you better come find me quick because either someone has highjacked my IM ID or I've fallen prey to some sort of deranged tickle maniac who is strong enough to hold me down and tickle me 'till I can't breathe.