OMG…. Did you understand that Well the good people at the Oxford Dictionary think you should as OMG is one of a few modern internet related Abbreviations (or initialisms) that has officially made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.
OMG (Oh My God) is joined by LOL (Laugh Out Loud) and FYI (For Your Information) all of which are hugely common abbreviations used in internet and most text based services and in a few cases even uttered as words themselves.
The Oxford English Dictionary has decided to take a step into the future as it doesn’t seem that the internet slang is going to be hiding away anytime soon. In a statement from the publishers they stated:
“For the March 2011 release of OED Online, we have selected for publication a number of noteworthy initialisms—abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of a name or expression. Some of these—such as OMG and LOL are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications (email, texting, social networks, blogs, and so on).”
Now this move does seem to strike us as a move to “Get down with the Kids” but the OED has gone out of its way to point out that OMG, LOL and FYI aren’t a new abbreviations, with them appearing many years ago…
“Our first quotation for OMG is from a personal letter from 1917; the letters LOL had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (or ‘little old lady’; see LOL n./1); and the entry for FYI [FYI phr., adj., and n.], for example, shows it originated in the language of memoranda in 1941.”
To some this may be the beginning of the end of the classic language as this intro into “Internet Speak” is sure to continue. Next year we can probably look forward to the inclusion of ROFL, TB and the dreaded ZOMG.