OMG! The Oxford English Dictionary Hearts LOL
The English language’s newest additions might surprise you.
Oxford English Dictionary just released its list of additions and revisions for their coming June edition, and the terms LOL and OMG were among the new members of the English language. This means they’re actual words now, and not just figments of our demented collective imagination.
Interestingly enough, OMG was actually first documented in use in a 1917 letter written by British Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher to Winston Churchill. He wrote, “I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!”
Whatever that means.
The origins of LOL are less prestigious. OED cites first recorded usage in 1990, in a glossary of geek jargon posted to a Usenet group.
Among the OED’s other amendments and revisions: “muffin top” was granted an additional, less literal definition–the “roll of flesh” hanging over a person’s wasteband–and heart was granted verb status, as in, “I heart Big Momma’s House 2.”
The only question now is: Does this mean we can use LOL and OMG in Scrabble games? Or are they still technically acronyms?
Maybe I’ll just pretend like this never happened.
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