- Who
- John A F Fisher
- What
- first
- Where
- Großbritannien ()
- When
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first documented use of the acronym OMG – the now-ubiquitous digital communications shorthand for "Oh My God" – was in a letter written in 1917 and published in a volume of memoirs in 1919 by Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher (UK). The original letter was sent to Winston Churchill, then the UK's Minister of Munitions, on 9 September 1917 and read: "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis – O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) – Shower it on the Admiralty!"
"Tapis" is a reference to "tablecloth", so "on the tapis" means "on the table". The publication of Fisher's memoirs came in the 1919 book Memories. The first documented appearance of OMG in a digital context was on 24 September 1994 on the rec.arts.tv.soaps Newsnet newsgroup: "OMG! what did I say".
