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You know, EU, I’d be willing to bet that quite a few more native speakers of English would manage to correctly decipher ROTFLMAO than IELTS. 
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I would certainly expect any IELTS expert to be able to correctly identify at least the ROTFL part.
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Hi Amy,
Do you think that clerical markers and senior examiners employed by the British Council in London are mostly non-native speakers?
All the best
EU
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I really don’t know, EU, but it seems likely to me that they’d have plenty of native speakers on board. I would expect an expert non-native speaker to be able to identify ‘ROTFL’, too. In fact, I would expect that there are even some people that hardly speak English at all who would be able to identify ROTFL.
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By the way, the ‘LMAO’ part of ‘ROTFLMAO’ stands for a commonly used expression in informal American English.
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Hi Amy,
You are so right.
All the best
EU
EU
Egads (!), yeah, I hope nobody actually tries to use such acronyms/abbreviations on a test or in formal writing!
Folks, that stuff is for INFORMAL WRITING ONLY!
Exactly! And any English expert who marks an ESL test should not only be able to identify ROTFL (after all, it is extremely well-known), but also the register and context for which it is appropriate. 
you are cute,
you are pretty
Hi Amy,
Note that there are people who know almost nothing about “chatroom English”. Queen Elizabeth didn’t know that much about it until very recently.
All the best
EU
Hi Englishuser,
What is the connection between the Queen and ESL professionals? Why are you so obsessed with the Queen, are you a PR manager of the Royal Family?[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEFL listening lectures: What is the main difference between a fad and a trend?[YSaerTTEW443543]
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The image of Queen Liz participating in an online chatroom tickles my fancy.
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Amy64573: Yo, QE2, what do you like to do?
TheQueenofEngland123: We like to play with our dogs.
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Do you think there’s any chance she might dispense with “the royal we” in that particular context? :lol:
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Hi,
Just a thought. Maybe we should apply for a notice to be put on our site:
By appointment to Her Majesty. After all, marmalade manufacturers can use this on their products if it is known that the good lady tucks into a spot of ‘marmers’ made by them on her jolly old toast, don’t you know. What a spiffing idea. I warm to the whole concept of this the more I think of it. Who knows EU might get an invite to a Buckingham Palace tea party for her services to the royal cause. Then the two of them could have a right old gas together as they sip their Earl Grey and sink their gnashers into the cucumber sandwiches, so carefully prepared by the royal Maker of the Sandwiches. What a jolly time they would indeed have. My mouth waters at the prospect. Just imagine EU and Queenie deep in conversation lamenting the poor standard of English currently employed by the riff raff and their ragtail chums. How their hands would gesticulate! How their minds would unite in a mutual admiration for the good old days when Britain ruled the waves and an Englishman’s word was his bond. When the English language flourished and wasn’t sullied with those most horrible and terribly frightful Americanisms that creep into the most beautiful of languages. How the dogs (pronounced dawgs) would yelp in agreement and her eldest son would clap his hands and join in the memories of the past.
Alas this is but a pipe dream. I hold back my tears with my stiff upper lip (a difficult task even for a contortionist) and close as I look through my rose coloured spectacles.
Alan
Alan, I’d forgotten all about “tucks into” as a way to say “eats”.
Thanks for using it… cool phrase.
Hello Maggie,
I just want to share an experience. There was a guy who praised me by using toothpicks and the adjectives other forumers had mentioned above.
What he did was, he bent 5 toothpicks one at a time while praising and saying all the beautiful things. And he placed each of them in a circle on a saucer (with the bent part in the middle, almost touching each other) and at the end he poured 2 or 3 drops of water in the middle.
And voila! the toothpicks moved slowly and formed a star! This is when he said " This is the shape of my heart when I met you. " I think. :?: It was 2 or 3 years ago.
I was so impressed by the trick I totally neglected him. I tried it with my boyfriend and he also was too distracted to notice everything I said.
We ended up discussing surface tension. Now that, is romantic 
Give it a try. I highly recommend it. But be ready to be neglected.
Nina
Hi Alan,
I like your idea, and I fancy the way you write:
Some other comments:
I hope you pronounce “dogs” that way! The idea of the dogs yelping in agreement is really cute.
Fortunately, even something that would seem like a “pipe dream” might become true. One never knows.
All the best
EU
lol, Nina
And, yeah, I’m with EU in admiring Alan’s (sometimes) delightful prose.
hi everybody, im new here …
i prefer to use the word gorgeous to describe e beautiful woman!!! 
Good choice.
Hi,
Just a random thought: what if I say to a chick “you look awesome”? Is it cool, or does it suck in that context?