{"id":3682,"date":"2015-06-01T05:58:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T05:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3682"},"modified":"2016-08-31T19:29:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T19:29:15","slug":"how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you haha? LOL through the ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lauren Collister<\/a>, University of Pittsburgh<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Laughter is uniquely human. Sometimes deliberate, sometimes uncontrollable, we laugh out loud to signal our reaction to a range of occurrences, whether it\u2019s a response to a joke we hear, an awkward encounter or an anxious situation. The way we laugh is, according to anthropologist Munro S Edmonson<\/a>, a \u201csignal of individuality.\u201d<\/p>\n

And an outburst of laughter is an important enough part of communication that we represent it in text.<\/p>\n

In a recent The New Yorker article<\/a>, Sarah Larson wrote about laughter in internet-based communication \u2013 the use of hahaha<\/em> and hehehe<\/em>, even the jovial hohoho<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Larson writes, \u201cThe terms of e-laughter \u2013 \u2018ha ha,\u2019 \u2018ho ho,\u2019 \u2018hee hee,\u2019 \u2018heh\u2019 \u2013 are implicitly understood by just about everybody. But, in recent years, there\u2019s been an increasingly popular newcomer: \u2018hehe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

However, even before texting and online chatting, textual representations of laughter \u2013 most of which have onomatopoeic forms \u2013 have appeared in writing since Chaucer\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Like all language, it has merely evolved with our culture and adapted to new technology, becoming in the process far more nuanced \u2013 much like the true \u201cspoken\u201d laughter it\u2019s intended to represent.<\/p>\n

A brief history of laughter<\/h2>\n

In her 2011 book Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation<\/a>, linguist Sali Tagliamonte shares three historical examples of laughter in literature.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Page 340 from Variationist Sociolinguistics (click to zoom).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Tagliamonte shows, hehe<\/em> is not exactly a new invention: it appears in a Latin grammar book written by \u00c6lfric of Eynsham<\/a> in about 1000 AD. Haha<\/em> appears in Chaucer 300 years later, while ha, ha, he<\/em> can be found in the works of Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

Using Google\u2019s Ngram Viewer, which allows users to search for words and phrases in all of the books that Google has scanned, it is evident that hehe<\/em> \u2013 along with haha<\/em> and hoho<\/em> \u2013 has been in use for quite some time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A Google Ngram graph depicts the prevalence of laughter in text through the centuries (click to zoom).<\/span>
\nAuthor provided<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you look closely at the examples from this search, you\u2019ll see a number of misreads of the text by the search function (for example, hehe<\/em> is often confused with the name of the Greek goddess Hebe<\/em>). However, you\u2019ll also see texts from plays and scripts, along with dialogue in novels and even dictionaries of other spoken languages. All of these representations of laughter are connected to words being spoken out loud.<\/p>\n

The evolution of LOL<\/h2>\n

Words like haha<\/em> and hehe<\/em> have traditionally been used to represent actual<\/em> laughter in text, whether in response to a joke or to indicate nervousness or awkwardness.<\/p>\n

Only in recent years have various acronyms arisen to represent laughter in text. From ROFL<\/em> (Rolls On Floor Laughing) to LMAO<\/em> (Laughing My Ass Off) \u2013 and, of course, LOL<\/em> \u2013 these acronyms have become increasingly popular as internet and online conversation has proliferated.<\/p>\n

LOL is perhaps the most ubiquitous of these acronyms. According to linguist Ben Zimmer<\/a>, the first recorded use of LOL is from the May 1989 edition of the FidoNews Newsletter (though some have disputed<\/a> this).<\/p>\n

Almost everyone who has typed these acronyms knows that don\u2019t always represent physical laughter. As linguist David Crystal asked<\/a> in his 2006 book Language and the Internet<\/a>, \u201cHow many people are actually \u2018laughing out loud\u2019 when they send LOL?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not many. In one study of online teen language<\/a>, researchers found that LOL is \u201cused by our participants in the flow of conversation as a signal of interlocutor involvement, just as one might say mm-hm in the course of a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

And another linguist, John McWhorter, pointed out<\/a> that LOL has changed from indicating real laughter to a signal of \u201cbasic empathy between testers\u201d \u2013 in other words, a sign that you have read and acknowledged the message. It\u2019s also a way to interject a bit of a casual flair to a conversation, much in the same way we might use a short laugh or a nod in face-to-face conversation.<\/p>\n

So LOL \u2013 just like some of the basic laughs that it represents \u2013 doesn\u2019t really mean any one thing in particular, but rather displays the speaker\u2019s (or typer\u2019s) attitude. In a sense, LOL works much in the same way emoticons and emoji do<\/a>: when people send a smiley face, they may not actually be smiling; they simply want to convey that they\u2019re feeling<\/em> happy.<\/p>\n

Just like the many variations of emoticons and emojis, so too are there many flavors of lol: the emphatic lololol<\/em>, the sarcastic lolz<\/em> and even lulz<\/em>-seeking internet trolls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Laughter signals individuality in text, too<\/h2>\n

What about haha<\/em>, hehe<\/em>, and hoho<\/em> in our e-language? Returning to the online teen language study, researchers found that haha<\/em> was the most widely used representation of laughter after LOL<\/em> on instant message.<\/p>\n

Hehe<\/em> was the third most widely used form \u2013 and this one, they say, represented giggling. But what may be new are the connotations that hehe<\/em> has taken on to differentiate itself from its competitors, haha<\/em> and hoho<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For example, the users of hehe<\/em> interviewed in The New Yorker article agree on the giggling aspect of hehe<\/em>, but vary in whether they view it as friendly or conspiratorial: it all depends on how many E<\/em>\u2019s the word has.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the connotations associated with each form seem to be as unique as the people using them. These variations give all the more support to Edmonson\u2019s assertion from 1987 that our laughter is a sign of our individuality \u2013 even in text.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Lauren Collister<\/a> is Electronics Publications Associate at University of Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lauren Collister, University of Pittsburgh Laughter is uniquely human. Sometimes deliberate, sometimes uncontrollable, we laugh out loud to signal our reaction to a range of occurrences, whether it\u2019s a response to a joke we hear, an awkward encounter or an anxious situation. The way we laugh is, according to anthropologist Munro S Edmonson, a \u201csignal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":7602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7603,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3682\/revisions\/7603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}