This seriously made me lol today.
In case you weren’t aware (and I know some of you out there aren’t, because I’ve had to explain it to a few friends before), the above image is called an lolcat. Here’s an article detailing the history of lolcats and lolspeak - the half-baby-talk, half-SMS-jargon language that typifies lolcats, loldogs, lolruses, and all other lolcritters. You may want to read it, even if you think you know all about lolspeak. The author has some interesting insights about the development of the “language.”
For example, the author writes that “Anil Dash, a noted online entrepreneur [...] rather ingeniously speculated that lolcats aren’t misspeaking English, but are in fact speaking a kind of “kitty pidgin,” a real language that has been invented as a middle ground between English and the inscrutable language of cats.”
I think the idea of this contrived common language is strange, but it makes sense. How many of you speak to your pets with a voice and lingo that you would never use with a human? Why not write your own animal pidgin down, as these people have? I’m not suggesting that we teach lolspeak to kindergartners or use it to write our college theses, but but it is a unique record of the creativity of language.
By the way, as the article states, “years ago, a snippet of poorly translated video game dialogue, ‘All your base are belong to us,’ became a fad just like lolcats, and it has stayed wedged in the mass consciousness ever since.” That mistranslated quote is the derivation of the above lolcat and this one:
I like the first one best, but after having worked in a radio station, I also have an appreciation for any combination of cats, soundboards, and microphones.
-MJ Schindler, aka Kitty Mowmow
Add New Comment
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks
(Trackback URL)