O HI! We’re gonna take a quick break from serious publication issues to bring you the funny. Which is to say, “lolcatz.”

Which is something I knew nothing about until yesterday. I mean, yes, I saw John Scalzi’s contributions to the trend–which include a photo of Nancy Pelosi captioned “I’M IN UR HOUSE, IMPEACHIN UR D00DZ” which I can’t seem to find at this exact moment–but I was unaware of that caption’s greater cultural significance.

If you’re going, “What the heck is that?” then this post is for you. If you’re going, “Jeez, that meme was old twenty minutes after it started,” this post is not for you, but you may find it worth your while to stick around for links to some hilarious derivative products.

So I’m reading the Making Light post about how Teresa Nielsen Hayden has given up on Wikipedia, which is a worthwhile post and follow-up discussion to read and you should, when I get to mention of the lolcatz page being recommended for deletion. So I go read the article. And I go, “ah-ha! So that’s what that is.”

This inspires my husband and I to spend the evening viewing everything *and I do mean everything) at I Can Has Cheezburger? and laughing ourselves into a state of teary-eyed pain. (Favorites: anything that subverts the genre.) I think tonight we may follow up with Meme Cats.

But this post is not just about hilarity. It’s about erudite hilarity. Blogger Anil Dash has been analyzing the messed up syntax of lolcatz captions. He realized that it’s possible to get lolcatz syntax wrong, which must mean that there are rules to this “kitty pidgin” (or “catois” as one of his commenters suggested) that require further study. (I personally think that any use of the word “else” in the formation “do X else i Y ur Z” is a mistake, being too formal, and should be replaced with “or.”)

This post is also about derivative hilarity. Thus, lolbrarians, lolgays, and loltrek. (It’s all safe for work, except for the explosive giggle attacks that might result. I find that pinching my nose helps keep the hysteria contained.)

So there you go. Next time on resurrecting internet memes that everyone else but me has already heard about and bought the T-shirt of: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!