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LOL Cats circulate the web
Wed, 1st Feb 2012
FYI, this story is more than a year old

You've probably seen these hilarious photos of cute kitties with funny captions circulating the web. Known as "LOLcats”, this explosively popular phenomenon features everyday pictures of cats with a "LOLspeak” (also known as kitty pidgin) caption. What is LOLspeak you ask? It's a peculiar language believed to have originated through text messaging and instant messenger abbreviations, and has somehow evolved into a "cool” method of social communication and a popular accompaniment to these photos of cats. Similar to texting, LOLspeak is writing words with different letters (but letters that sound the same) than the original spelling. LOLspeak can also be misspelling words on purpose. Examples of LOLspeak: dunno what happnd, we dint touch it (Don't know what happened, we didn't touch it) i can has ice scream? (Can I have ice cream?) teh itteh bitteh kitteh commiteh (The itty bitty kitty committee) oh sry just using lolspeak (Oh sorry, just using LOLspeak) Some of the photo captions are not in LOLspeak but many of them are, and as ridiculous and annoying as the language is, it actually manages to add more humour to the pictures. Many of these photos hit the right note with cat lovers because of their ability to show the personality of cats so well – elusive, demanding, mischievous – what cats would say if they could speak! Here are some of our favourites.