Shovel my hulu

OMG is widely recognized as text or internet shorthand for “Oh My God!,” although my cousin Coffey from Chillicothe (he’s a cross between a redneck and a hillbilly) said he thought it meant “Oil My Gun!” which is a country-folk exclamation of amazement similar to “You don’t say!” or “Well, gall dang, look at that!”

Anyway, you might be surprised that OMG was used as far back as 1917 when a British naval officer wrote to Winston Churchill about some new titles Sir Winston was about to bestow upon the Navy. “OMG (Oh! My God!) – Shower it upon the Navy” he said.

Some other acronyms also appeared much earlier than the InterWebs.

IDK – now we use it as “I don’t know,” in the 1950s it meant “I Doubt Kansas” which was used to tell someone they are full of BS.

SMH – “Shaking my head” to indicate you think somethings is ludicrous, asinine or ill-advised. In the 1930’s it meand “Shovel My Hulu” which meant soemthing like “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

IKR – Today it means “I know, right?” In the 1960s it meant “I kan resonate.” The misspelling marked you as cool and not a square.

AMA – “Ask me anything” is a popular acronym that is even a popular interview feature on the Reddit forum. But if you were using it in 1945, it meant “All My Asses” which was youth-speak for “your whole family.”

TL;DR – one of the downsides of the internet age is allows blowhards to go on forever and leave super long messages denser than a Kryptonite rock. “Too Long; Didn’t Read” does double duty as a suggestion to be more succinct and a put-down that your writing is disrespectful to my time. However, in the 1950s, it meant “Tough Love; Don’t Reply” which was used by women trying to get respond to a stack of suitor love notes on Valentine’s Day. It was a fast way to get rid of the losers and keep the winners.