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Sunday, 6 January 2013

For those who analyse textspeak ...

Letter to Winston Churchill May Contain First Known Use of ‘OMG’

 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/08/letter-to-churchill-may-contain-first-omg.html 

 

 
 
Letters of Note curator Shaun Usher has pointed out what might be the first known usage of O.M.G., in a September 1917 missive from British admiral John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher (or Lord Fisher) to Sir Winston Churchill. In a letter to Churchill about some "utterly [upsetting]" World War I–era newspaper headlines, Fisher wrote, "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G (Oh! My! God!)— Shower it on the Admiralty!!" To which we assume Churchill replied, "Oh Dear Fisher! I am laughing heartily out loud!!"

I especially like the comment of DRBOB:

Wow--and he also pioneered the ultra-annoying "string of three one-word sentences" thing, in the very same letter, though he did it with exclamation points rather than periods (Oh! My! God!). An astonishing document; to call the Admiral a man ahead of his time would be to damn him with faint praise. Go. Jacky. Go.

 

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