OMG

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS found no OMGs until recently.

The 1917 is an outlier indeed.

JL

On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: OMG
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't recall Read's articles containing OMG and a search of American
> Speech on JSTOR doesn't turn it up.
>
> The Daily News article seems to simply be relying on the OED, which has the
> 1917 letter as the first citation. The OED entry is from March 2004, so
> it's
> hardly a new discovery. The next citation is an adjectival use of OMG from
> 1982. Making the 1917 use something of an outlier. Although given the
> penchant people have for creating initialisms, it seems plausible that OMG
> was independently coined on numerous occasions, and I wouldn't be surprised
> if earlier (and later) ones showed up.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> Laurence Horn
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 1:19 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: OMG
>
> On Dec 5, 2012, at 12:20 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
> > Daily News claims first use of OMG to Lord Fisher in 1917 letter to
> Winston
> > Churchill:
> >
> >
>
> http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/11/world-war-i-admiral-to-wi
> nston-churchill-%E2%80%98omg%E2%80%99-literally
> >
>
> Can we be sure that the U.S. newspaper fad from the 1830s that gave us
> "O.K." (and at least one instances of alphanumeric "b4") never included an
> instance of "O.M.G." with this sense?  (I can't locate my ADS volume that
> contains reprints of the relevant A. W. Read papers on O.K. and the fad.)
>
> LH
>
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