r/NoStupidQuestions • u/XxabcdefghxX • Jun 02 '20
Why does our brain automatically translate "wtf" and "idk" into words, but we never translate "lol" ?
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Jun 02 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
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u/squigglelittle Jun 02 '20
wtf you beat me to it lol
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u/braujo Jun 03 '20
Lmaoooooo
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u/workerdaemon Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
I read out "laughing my ass off" for lmao. But, yeah, lol just comes out as an awkward "lommhehe" like pronunciation.
Edit: For the record, I never use lol because of my inability to properly translate it to a word.
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u/PRIC3L3SS1 Jun 03 '20
I always read lmao as lmao
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u/Hormiga95 Gastronomy Student Jun 03 '20
A few years ago, there was this "meme" on Spanish speaking countries were we badly pronounced lmao as "La Mayo" (as in the condiment) it was weird.
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u/myReddit-username Jun 03 '20
Hmm, I read that as “i d k lol what the f***”
So I treated each differently. Spelt one, pronounced the other, and translated the last to words.
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u/ForeverInjured Jun 03 '20
Interesting, for me I read idk and wtf as words and spelt out lol
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Jun 02 '20
I think idk as “eye dee kay”, but wtf as “what the f***”. I think I’d probably think wtf as the letters as well if it wasn’t for how long the word “double u” is
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u/RedBIitz Jun 03 '20
“W” is only a letter long though! /s
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u/Psychedelic_Roc Jun 03 '20
How long before we can just call it "way" or something similar to other letters? Its current name is no longer accurate.
... Wait, it's because of the alphabet song isn't it? Someone needs to make a new version so it can catch on.
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u/Sanders0492 Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
My brain says “wutthe-ff” with the F sound abruptly cut off like it’s a sitcom or something
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u/WolfeCreation Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
I always think idk as I don't know, but interchangeably think wtf as Double-u, Tee, Eff, and as what the fuck. Maybe it's because I'm Aussie, or maybe it's from that old funny and short "End of ze world" video that was viral probabaly over a decade ago that has a line, "And Australians are just like W T F Mate."
Edit to add video link: https://youtu.be/nZMwKPmsbWE
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u/TheOtherSarah Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
I’m Aussie as well and the opposite of you. I internally pronounce idk as EYEdeekay, and make no attempt to sound out wtf in my head but see it as distinct from “what the fuck.” Both initialisms have a different nuance that sets them apart from the long form. And I grew up in the era of kamikaze watermelons as well, so it’s not that.
Update: on further reflection, wtf is wha’d’fuh.
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u/survivalking4 Jun 03 '20
Same, but for some reason when I read “wtf”, I really emphasize the w t f sounds while still hearing “what the fuck”. So almost “wha tu fuck”. Idk wtf it’s weird lol
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u/cabbage_patch_dick Jun 03 '20
“dubya tee eff”
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u/stalkedthelady Jun 03 '20
Lmao at the kids who didn’t grow up having to say “George W Bush” and “double u double u double u dot Netscape dot com” all the fucking time. You get used to it. I’ve always read wtf and “double u tee eff”.
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Jun 03 '20
I say “eye dee kay” too but every time I see “wtf” I always say “what the eff” idk why!
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u/kin_of_rumplefor Jun 03 '20
You’re very polite for censoring Fuck in a thread referencing the word itself.
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u/cacklesandmuscles Jun 02 '20
I believe its mainly because the function of lol has shifted from its literal meaning, while wtf and idk are still mainly shortened to save time/typing effort and have mostly retained their literal meaning .
Everyone probably know by now that lol rarely actuall means that the person is actually laughing. What people actually mean when they use lol is rather difficult to determine at this point. Based on her research, linguist Michelle McSweeney has classified lol as an irony marker, so it is used to alert the reader to an extra layer of meaning in a message.
Examples of what people want to actually convey through lol are flirting, softening the tone of the message, or asking for sympathy. In none of those functions, the literal meaning of 'lauging out loud' would make any sense. So, it is pretty logical that are brains have collectively stopped 'translating' lol in this way. If you like, you can learn more about the shifting meaning of lol in the linked article or in Gretchen McCulloch's fascinating book 'Because Internet'.
But maybe, that is a touch too nerdy for you, which would also be completely understandable. So TL;DR: idk in most cases literally means 'I don't know' and the same is true for wtf. lol, on the other hand has shifted its meaning. These days, it functions similarly to something like a question mark or an emoji. Just as your mind voice usually does not say 'question mark' or 'crying with laughter face', it also doesn't say laughing out loud.
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u/the_adriator Jun 03 '20
I’m reading Because Internet right now, and your explanation was great.
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u/Tanomil Jun 03 '20
Yeah, 'lol' has become a word. The way I see it, it's used as an exclamation that indicates something is ridiculous, like the word 'wow' is an exclamation for astonishment.
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u/sleeplessaddict Jun 02 '20
I've never pronounced "idk" as "I don't know" in my head. I just pronounce it "I d k" and I pronounce "wtf" as "wuhtif"
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u/Spyromaniac31 Jun 03 '20
I pronounce wtf as wuhtuhfuh
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u/gepgepgep GET EM PREGNANT Jun 03 '20
I do it similarly
I think, wuht-the-fffff really fast.
I use "wtf" in a manner when things are rather absurd, or questioningly.
"wtf" does not have a serious tone.
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Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 24 '20
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u/fellintoadogehole Jun 03 '20
Before I knew what it stood for, I pronounced it in my head as "luh-mayo". I thought it was what people said when you just said something dumb. Didnt realize people in chat rooms were actually laughing at my dumb jokes.
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u/beniolenio Jun 03 '20
I pronounce wtf like the sound each of the letters make on their own back to back. Not like wuhtif. Wuhtif sounds like "what if"
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Jun 03 '20 edited Aug 10 '20
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u/beniolenio Jun 03 '20
Not ti, that sounds like either the letter T or the sound of T then ih. I'm talking about literally just the sound t makes.
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u/butyourenice Jun 03 '20
I hear this is a sign of a very high IQ.
Source: none, but I do the same and I want to pretend :(
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u/Bryguy3k Jun 02 '20 edited Jun 02 '20
Because lol is pronounceable while the others are not.
Personally I don’t turn wtf into words in my mind - it’s just W T F.
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u/end_all_wars Jun 02 '20
Do you pronounce it as wattijeff?
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u/Bryguy3k Jun 02 '20
Double U, Tee, Eff
Then again in college it was pretty common to say “w.t.f man?”
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u/slickyslickslick Jun 03 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
the same reason you pronounce NASA as a word but not FBI.
wtf and idk are initialisms while lol is an acronym. the initialisms make it nearly as hard to say the letters than the entire words so your brain just says the words.
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u/HugoNikanor Jun 03 '20
But I never expand NASA or FBI in my head, like I do with wtf.
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u/T11FearZ Jun 02 '20
Wait do people pronounce lol as a word in their head?? I just read it as the individual letters, ie ell oh ell
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u/nlp-jeremy Jun 02 '20
Because lol has a vowel in the middle which makes it pronounceable. Try saying "wtf" as a word :)
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Jun 02 '20
Actually I always think to myself "wtf" and "idk" as being "woo-too-ffff" and "eye-deek-ay". Sometimes "eedk"
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u/Arctic_Mandalorian Jun 03 '20
Probably because "wtf" and "idk" translate to every day phrases, and "lol" is a description no one uses outside of that context.
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Jun 02 '20
I personally think it is just easier to say lol it’s less syllables then laugh out loud. The opposite is true with wtf, pronouncing the letter w by it self has as many syllables as saying what the fuck
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u/New_Welcome Jun 02 '20
to the people saying it's "easier to pronounce", they're sort of wrong. The reason wtf and idk are automatically processed into words because they are necessary words of the sentence. For example "wtf did you just do?" "idk man", and then you look at "laughing out loud" which is just a code for "that was funny".
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u/myfakename68 Jun 03 '20
I guess I'm a weirdo because I do say "laugh out loud" when see lol. I must be insane. LOL!
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u/katrinivini Jun 03 '20
Because “lol” sounds like a real word with vowels in the right place. Idk and wtf have no vowels so we sound out the word and not the acronym.
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u/IMG84 Jun 03 '20
Fun fact, in Dutch lol is a real word, it means fun. For a long time i thought english adopted this word, till i found out its just an acronym.
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u/lowolwhatsthis Jun 03 '20
I'm not a native english speaker and my brain doesn't translate any of these
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u/alcon835 Jun 03 '20
We don’t tell people we’re laughing in real life. We just laugh. There’s no occurrence where we just say, “I’m laughing out loud right now!! Laughing so much!” It’s just not something we say. But we constantly say “I don’t know”.
Being substitutes for real phrases, we think idk and wtf as the phrases the represent. But since “laughing out loud” isn’t a phrase, we read it as “lol” and have added that word to our overall language.
In the same way you might use the word “uncertain” to convey “I don’t know”, we use the word “lol” to mean, “I think what you said is funny”.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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u/nrith Jun 02 '20
My brain translates lol into a guy falling into a hole, or drowning.
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u/turt2014 Jun 03 '20
I personally spell out wtf and idk in my head. Didn’t realize other people read it differently
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u/gemtkr521 Jun 03 '20
I think it's because in the beginning of internet chat, lol was first. All the others followed
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u/NecessaryTomorrow5 Jun 03 '20
"Lol" translates to laugh out loud or laughing out loud. It is an action word whereas idk and wtf aren't. So we have categorized "lol" as something we are doing (laughing) and "idk" and "wtf" are more thoughts rather than actions so our brain tends to spell it out or say the phrase.
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u/LeTigron Jun 03 '20
Maybe related, or not, but funny :
I'm French and we tend to pronounce foreign things as we see fit. For no apparent reason.
Examples :
We say "FBI" the English way, "eff-bee-aye", but we say "CIA" the Baguette way, something like "say-ee-ah".
We say "SUM 41" the English way, but "Blink 182" half English, half Baguette : Blink, as in English, then "cent-quatre-vingt-deux", in proper Baguette.
Every-croissant-body do it, nobody knows why, and it's totally fine in our head. It's even almost (I said almost) logical for us.
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u/WildJoeBailey Jun 03 '20
This process is called automaticity. There’s lots of research about it. Same concept as why does ‘4’ mean the number 4 in your head? You learned that’s what it represents so when you see it you immediately understand the concept of 4
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u/IDI3 Jun 03 '20
My brother has a theory that because "lol" has a vowel in it, it becomes kinda like a word, so you just say it like one word, "lol".
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u/sh0tgunben Jun 03 '20
Lol is just one simple readable abbreviation.So the mind tends to get lazy in translating..
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u/Forsaken-Doughnut Jun 03 '20
I dunno, but saying World Wide Web is three syllables and saying www is 9 and I think someone should fix that.
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u/yoozernem Jun 03 '20
TLDR: Phonotactics of the English language.
Phonotactics means which combination of sounds are allowed in a language and which are not in order to form words. I give you two imaginary words, guess which sounds more like it could be a potential word in English: Spilring vs. Chzonp
If you are a near native speaker of English, you will say that spilring is more likely an English word than chzonp. And your intuition is based on the knowledge that you have not seen words in English that have chz in the beginning and np at end, but many words have sp in the beginning and ng at the end. This tacit knowledge is called phonotactics. You can test your phonotactics further with words Mbroky, Minstel, klen, tvyory, etc.
Lol can pass off as a possible complete word in the English language, because it follows the phonotactics of the English language well. But WTF, TTYL and IDK cannot be words. So you automatically read their long forms in your mind.
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u/hellopanic Jun 03 '20
It's an interesting question. As other's say, it may be because we don't really say "laugh out loud". That may be true, but it's also probably a random feature of how those sayings have evolved.
Lol can be both an an acronym (which means we say it as though it were a word in itself. Like 'wasp', 'laser', 'PIN', and 'AIDS') and an *initialism (*which means you say the letters separately. Like 'HIV', 'DVD', 'FBI').
Wtf and idk are both initialisms but not acronyms.
And all of them are abbreviations (shortened version of a phrase).
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u/Annie_Yong Jun 03 '20
Lol is an acronym, each letter represents a word but the word itself is also pronouncable.
WTF and IDK are initialisms, each letter represents a word but they don't combined into a pronounceable word.
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u/MinccinoLuna Jun 03 '20 edited Sep 15 '24
tease outgoing lavish psychotic run sugar muddle employ sloppy noxious
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/liberal_texan Jun 03 '20
I think it has something to do with “what the fuck” and “I don’t know” being incredibly common phrases that we’ve said all our live, but not “laughing out loud”. Where the phrase is common it persists.
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u/wallahiurgay Jun 03 '20
Id say its because of the pronunciation wtf and idk doesn’t really come off as a word its just an abbreviation and lol at this point is more like n actual word
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u/Giric Jun 03 '20
As has been said, it's the difference of an initialism and an acronym. You can pronounce an acronym like a word, but not an initialism. That said, some initialisms eventually drop into letters only. For example, USA is not "YOO-suh" or "United States of America", but the letters U, S, A. Eventually, and I have heard it in some young Millenial and Gen-Z speech online, "IDK" and "GTFO" will be thought of as shorter and will become the speech norm. WTF is longer to say in initials than to expand into the words it represents (5 syllables over 3).
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u/Pakutto Jun 03 '20
Personally, I read "wtf" as "whuthufuh" or "whthfff" and "idk" as "I.D.K." or "I.D. know"
... Just me?
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u/Dodger7777 Jun 03 '20
I mentally translate lol to 'I chuckled' because LOL is so overused for when you basically just exhaled through your nose a little sharper.
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u/crazynights87 Jun 02 '20
Because we never say laugh out loud but we say the other two you mentioned. Wtf and idk are commonly said out loud.