THE teenage girl wearing jean shorts and a bikini top sunbathing at Long Beach, N.Y., on a recent hazy Saturday found her friends hilarious — if you’re willing to take her word for it.

“LOL,” she said, over and over again, without ever actually laughing. “LOL!”

Many acronyms meant to be written have wormed their way into spoken language — just ask your BFF, or the co-worker who prefaces everything with “FYI.” Lately, this is also the case for Internet slang.

First developed about 20 years ago to streamline conversation on chat platforms like Usenet and IRC and popularized on AOL instant messenger and Gmail chat, terms like LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (oh my God) and BTW (by the way) now seem to be popping up in real life (IRL).

Some would prefer it to stop. Larry David, chronicler of modern irritants, scolded a friend’s wife on a recent episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for constantly saying LOL rather than laughing.