Abstract: Online catch words are a unique phenomenon of the Internet society which derives from colloquial expressions but differs from them. The variation of online catch words is of specific social character and reflects the surrealistic mentality of netizens. The popular online catch word Di has gained some variations in recent years and has converted to a structural particle with a loss of its lexical meaning. By analyzing the origin of the variation of usage of Di, and the multiple functions and usage of Di from the social linguistics and functional linguistics perspective, this paper explores online language's characteristics of being quick, interesting and amusing.

Key words: online catch words, Di, social language, functional language, variation of usage