Toby Manhire, in his "Internaut" column in The New Zealand Listener, observes that the gnomes at Oxford Dictionaries Online have been busy, and "dear old ZOMG" has become official.Who knows where the acronym comes from? All we know is that it is a very recent addition to the lexicon. It was a typo, most probably, produced by someone who merely wanted to exclaim "OMG" (Oh My God) but was in such a hurry that the lefthand little finger twitched, and "Z" somehow intruded.
Now, it is the sarcastic version of OMG. According to the dictionary definition, it is "used especially on electronic message boards as a sarcastic comment on an inexperienced or overenthusiastic poster."
I love their example:
The airport was hot and big, but there was really nothing that made me stop and think ZOMG FOREIGN COUNTRY!
2 comments:
My two experts on current language usage (my 14 and 18 year old sons) are of the opinion that the Oxford Dictionaries have it wrong. They suggest that ZOWG is exclamatory rather than sarcastic in its usage.
The younger the computer expert, the more likely I am to believe him!
There was a funny story attached to the Listener post. Apparently LOL used to mean "lots of love". A young woman was stunned to get a text from her grandmother "Uncle Bill is dead LOL."
Post a Comment