OMG! OED Adds LOL and FYI.

A team of more than 70 wordsmiths from the stalwart bastion of language, the Oxford English Dictionary, have decided to add OMG, LOL, and FYI to the March 2011 release of the OED Online dictionary.

The OED notes that on the Internet, “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.” It's amazing how much the digital world is affecting vocabulary and grammar. Interestingly, though, these “initialisms” go quite a ways back in history.

OED Examples:

1917 J. A. F. Fisher Let. 9 Sept. in Memories (1919) v. 78, I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!

1990 Jargon File Draft, part 4 of 4 in comp.misc (Usenet newsgroup) 13 June, LOL‥laughing out loud.

1941 Washington Post 27 Apr. 5/3 ‘FYI’ titles this new program for the Mutual network‥. The letters mean ‘For Your Information’—a series detailing how the United States is combating sabotage and espionage.

Whether you view these additions as a further corruption of the English language or as natural evolution, it's a fascinating development. As I've said before, grammar prescriptivists don't stand a chance in this rapidly changing world.