Jan 02 2008
OMG, Oh My God, or WOW?
Chicago Tribune published recently a piece on the widespread usage of the im-speak OMG:
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who say “Oh my God!” and those who say something else. Even atheists have been known to cry “Oh my God!” on occasion.
I’m guessing that those who say something else say, “oh my gosh” or another way of saying “oh my god,” without saying “oh my god.”
While the Vatican denounced the taking of god’s name in vane yet again this year, Yahoo launched the celebrity gossip website omg! The Vatican should not worry much as the site is in beta at this time. However, the launch caused quite a bit of debate, according to Chicago Tribune:
A user writes: “This is taking the Lord’s name in vain, and while I’m fairly certain you could care less about that, I can no longer support Yahoo if they insist on keeping this OMG product. It shows the height of insensitivity to people of faith.”
To which another user replies: “Lighten up, it’s just an instant messaging phrase. If you find that kind of thing offensive, you should unplug your ethernet cable right now and stay off the internet.”
And then someone makes the point: “There is no doubt what the OMG stands for. Every Christian should be outraged that the name of the Lord is used with such disrespect. The point is that people use his name as an insignificant figure of speech.”
Officially, Yahoo avoids the conflict altogether. “The name ‘OMG’ is derived from IM speak and means ‘wow!’” says company spokesman Carrie Davis.
OMG!
5 responses so far
Weird post. Intriguing, but weird. My teenagers have started speaking in IM, and now I really don’t understand them. Not that I did before, but . . .
On a different (but related) note: My first experience with biblical literalism was a boy I went to school with in Arizona. We had an assembly in which a professional story teller spoke for more than an hour to the entire school (less than 250 kids, k-12). The guy was brilliant.
His last story was a retelling of genesis. It was beautiful. He spoke of god’s footsteps creating the valleys and mountains (keep in mind, I lived at Grand Canyon at the time, the greatest monument to time and geology in the U.S.). Afterwards, I mentioned to one of my friends what a neat myth that was. He turned to me and said, “That’s what actually happened. It’s in the bible.”
This launched into a discussion about the bible, religion, god, etc. (we were fourth-graders, so the discussion was most likely not that deep). I had forgotten one of his arguments for the existence of god until this post: “If a man falls off the rim of the canyon, what will he say? He will always say, ‘Oh, my god.’” This was his primary arguement for the existence of god and the innerency of the bible.
Thanks for bringing up weird memories of my childhood long, long, long ago. Good memories, but weird.
I’ve always found it curious that many people of the Christian persuasion actually think that “God” is their god’s name. Nobody reads the old testament any more. This should really be a non-issue.
When you say nobody reads the old testament anymore, it makes me think that in modern Christianity the decrees of the new testament overwrite the rules of the old. So in a sense, yeah, no one reads the old testament anymore
It amuses me how people make such a big deal out of something that to me, at least, seems so trivial.
Another way for angry religious people to look at it is to think that the common usage of the expression OMG is actually a way to glorify God’s name, by bringing him into the daily life in so many moments. Instead of him being out of the mind and the daily thought, he is much more present!
So let me get this straight. . . Oh-my-god is basically another, yet controversial, way to say “WOW”. People started texting oh-my-god, which means “WOW”. Oh-my-god takes too long to type so they shortened it to three letters, “OMG”, which means “WOW”. . . OMG PEOPLE!! WHY NOT JUST TYPE “WOW”!