My Mum
Bless her, has grasped the communication potential of text and email and has been regularly using them to send me missives at every opportunity.

In the beginning, she used to end every communique with LOL. After a while of this ('Your grandma died this morning LOL','Your Dad fell down the stairs last night. LOL' etc..) I got a bit disturbed, and asked her if she knew what it meant.

'Of course I do dear - it means Lots Of Love'.

I set her straight once I had LMAO and ROFL'd for a bit.
( DeadEyeDick, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:17, 10 replies)

My mate
(again the same on from the post below this one) also thought it meant lots of love. He first encountered it when conversing with our flamboyantly gay friend who we hadn't seen for years. The way he screwed his face up was priceless.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:19, closed)

Well I'd have...
LSHINSM

(not at Grandma dying, natch)
( Sallyrsm, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:20, closed)

Sorry to be ignorant
myself.... But wtf does THAT stand for?
( DeadEyeDick, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:23, closed)

I'm guessing
Laughed So Hard I Nearly Shat Myself
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:26, closed)

I think quite a few of us have gone through this.
Having explained it to each of my parents clearly, they both still insist on using it, independently.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:26, closed)

More than one person has got into trouble because of the same mistake.
The case that really stands out was someone sending a recently-bereaved colleague the message "sorry about your nan lol".
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:27, closed)

I used to make typos when in IRC, some years back
It could be very embarrassing when typing an opening bracket instead of a closing bracket, and pressing enter before I noticed.

A typical mistake would go like this:

<EuroSong> How are things with you?
<UnluckyGuy> Well, I have just been diagnosed with cancer. And last week I got burgled.
<EuroSong> :)
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 17:54, closed)

My revered Pa Pa, having only heard the acronym and never seen it in context
used to think it was "Little Old Ladies" and couldn't fathom what the hell I was doing on the web that involved that phrase so often it needed to be abbreviated.

Odd world we have.
( Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 16:44, closed)

actually
it can mean either

though dumb teens and morons on txt spk have made the laughy version more common
(bamboozled Can hear you getting fatter, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 17:31, closed)

My dad did this in a text about my great aunt dying.
I thought perhaps he had no idea what it meant, otherwise he was just being really cruel, but it was me who was ignorant of its nicer meaning! I'd have it as lots of love over laugh out loud any day.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 17:45, closed)