I came across this thread because, I too wanted to know the name for this category of terms. Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly obsolete 'lots of luck' or 'lots of love' used in letter-writing. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ('laugh(ing) my ass off') and ROFL (or its older form ROTFL 'roll(ing) on the floor laughing'). It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication. LOL or lol, an acronym for laugh(ing) out loud, or lots of laughs, is a popular element of Internet slang.

LOL, notably, has its own Wikipedia article where it is defined as being internet slang: Note that leetspeak (or just leet) is generally considered a separate entity from chat/text speak, as it uses more numerals and special suffixes and also encompasses things like ASCII art. Internet acronyms, text message jargon, abbreviations, initialisms, cyberslang, leetspeak, SMS code, textese The Wikipedia article includes lists of examples that include the ones you've listed in your question.Īnother source of information, broadens the terms for this to include:Ī.k.a. SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt lingo, SMSish, txtslang, txt talk) is a term for the abbreviations and slang commonly used with mobile phone text messaging, but sometimes used with other Internet-based communication such as email and instant messaging. The main Wikipedia article calls it SMS language but I've never heard that term before.

Generally, it's called 'chat speak' or 'text speak' as it originated in shorthand used when writing text messages and in chat rooms on the internet.

Texting lingo