The Abbreviation "OMG" Is Much Older Than You Think

Turns out that the abbreviation "OMG" has some rather distinguished roots within the 1917 Royal Navy, instead of every teenage girl's immediate reaction to any sort of situation.

If you've been in any sort of contact with a computer or a mobile phone (which I'd be both confused and impressed if you haven't, but yet are managing to read this story), you will probably know about "OMG."  But the first usage of the term, which we initially thought to be through the shortening of words in the inception of instant messaging, is actually wrong by about a century.  

The first recorded use of the term has been found in a 1917 correspondence to Winston Churchill, from British Admiral John Arbuthnot.

"I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!!"

A slightly more high-class ideal to such an annoying abbreviation of modern times.

Source: U.S. Archive (Page 87)

Jason England