OMG, LOL make it to Oxford Dictionary

Now it’s official: OMG and LOL are finally part of the English language. The august and esteemed Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has canonized these abbreviations —which are strongly associated with electronic communications— after noting that they have surprisingly been in use since as far back as the early and mid-1900s. “(Initialisms) are quicker to type than the full forms, and (in the case of text messages, or Twitter, for example) they help to say more in media where there is a limit to a number of characters one may use in a single message. OMG and LOL are found outside of electronic contexts, however; in print, and even in spoken use ... where there often seems to be a bit more than simple abbreviation going on. The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology," said principal editor Graeme Diamond on the OED website. OMG is defined in the dictionary as short for “Oh my God" (or sometimes “gosh" or “goodness"). LOL, short for “laughing out loud," is similarly strongly associated with electronic communications such as email, texting, social networks, and blogs, and so on. “They join other entries of this sort: IMHO (‘in my humble opinion’), TMI (‘too much information’) and BFF (‘best friends forever’), among others," Diamond added. But the OED said that, while many may consider OMG and LOL as coinages from the last 10 or 20 years, research has revealed some “unexpected historical perspectives." “Our first quotation for OMG is from a personal letter from 1917; the letters LOL had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (or ‘little old lady’); and the entry for FYI, for example, shows it originated in the language of memoranda in 1941," Diamond said. — TJD, GMA News