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LOL (an acronym for "laughing out loud"), LMAO, ROTFL and other Internet slang acronyms that express bodily reactions, in particular laughter, are very popular.

Are there equivalent or similar German expressions? If they do exist, are they actually being used?

TIA ;-)

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    kA, s. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
    – Phira
    May 31, 2011 at 7:27
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    @thei thx. HDGDL
    – splattne
    May 31, 2011 at 7:41
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    LOL isn't German? I always thought it stands for "Lautes Online-Lachen". :)
    – musiKk
    May 31, 2011 at 20:40
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    by the way: Most of the English acronyms are used in German online conversations as well.
    – Black
    Feb 26, 2012 at 12:53
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    @Vogel612: Whooooooosh.
    – musiKk
    Feb 10, 2013 at 17:59

2 Answers 2

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Here's an (incomplete) list of German language internet acronyms. Only one of them expresses a bodily reaction:

  • BD - Bis dann
  • BG - Breites Grinsen
  • DAU - Dümmster anzunehmender User (cf. Luser)
  • HGW - Herzlichen Glückwunsch
  • IDA / IEA - Ich dich (euch) auch
  • ILD - Ich liebe dich
  • HDL - Hab' dich lieb
  • HDGDL - Hab' dich ganz doll lieb
  • kA - keine Ahnung (anglc.: keine Angabe)
  • kwT - Kein weiterer Text (also kT, oT, owT)
  • LG - Liebe Grüße (also Viele Grüße, Viele liebe Grüße)
  • mMn - Meiner Meinung nach
  • SuFu - Suchfunktion
  • WD - Wieder da
  • WE - Wochenende

(an extract from WP:Liste von Abkürzungen (Netzjargon))

But it's very popular to to set the inflektiv in asterisks to express one of those. This kind of speech is of course, as in English, considered childish and may even be impolite.

  • *grins*, *lach*, *wein*, *aufsteh*, *rausgeh*, *rasenmäh*.
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    *Schenkel-klopf-und-lachend-auf-dem-Boden-roll*
    – deceze
    May 31, 2011 at 7:35
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    used among younger people is also hdl = hab dich lieb.
    – ladybug
    May 31, 2011 at 7:41
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    +1 für den DAU :-)
    – Jan
    May 31, 2011 at 9:39
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    @Vogel612 no need to be sorry, we are talking about german acronyms, gg is english and used in two ways (as far as I know): good game, popular in the online gaming community e.g. wc3, LoL, DotA, SC and so on, but also as "*gg*" (giggle giggle) by girls in regular chatting (online chat rooms, skype, icq, msn). In a solely german game context I have never seen gg, but in german chat context you'll find *gg* as acronym for "grins (grins)"
    – Samuel Herzog
    Feb 13, 2013 at 17:10
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    @Vogel612 The question was about German Internet Slang and not about German Internet Slang in Gaming Communities. You have to factor in every possible usage of Slang in Online Communities. Including but not limited to: Gaming Communities, Forums, Online Chat, Facebook, and so on. Additionally there are pure german online gaming communities, an example coming to mind are only-german browsergames. Please always think about the question and not about your personal experience only. In browsergame context good game would also make little sense since a lot of them are not round-based.
    – Samuel Herzog
    Feb 25, 2013 at 17:13
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In countries where "u" is pronounced "oo" (and not "ew"), one thing which I slipped up on at first was

Ups! (= Oops!)

(Note that this is not an acronym, but still slang.)

This seems painfully obvious when one knows, but beforehand, while reading an IRC transcript for example, one may think that something appeared above (up) in the log which people are referring to.

Seems worthwhile to point out, although YMMV.

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    It's neither an acronym, nor internet-specific. I'm not even convinced it's "slang". Ups is a common German interjection that has probably been used in spoken and written language for decades, comparably to "hoppla", "huch", "aua", etc.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Nov 16, 2016 at 14:26

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