The Chatspeak Scourge

In the L.A. Times, teacher Mary Kolesnikova is freaking at the prospect that LOL, OMG, YMMV and all those Godforsaken smileys are going to become permanent fixtures of the teenage writing style:

Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between a person LOLing and crying -- but I am definitely weeping. The cause for my earth-shattering depression is an April 25 Pew Research Center study that polled 12- to 17-year-olds on their attitudes about writing. A heart-stopping 38% said they let chat-speak -- such as LOL (for "laughing out loud"), ROFL ("rolling on the floor laughing"), BRB ("be right back"), TTYL ("talk to ya later") -- slip into essays and homework.

I propose a new chat term: KMN. "Kill me now."