OMG! It’s the German navy

QUESTION Was the acronym OMG in use during World War I?

The first recorded use of this term dates from 1917, in a letter from John Arbuthnot ‘Jacky’ Fisher to Winston Churchill.

Lord Fisher, often referred to as the greatest Royal Navy Admiral since Nelson, enjoyed an illustrious career. he started as a cadet, aged 13, in 1854. his career peaked in 1905 when he was appointed Admiral of the Fleet, the Navy’s highest rank.

he retired from the Admiralty in 1911 on his 70th birthday, but was appointed First Sea Lord (for the second time, the first in 1904) following the outbreak of World War I. he resigned on May 15, 1915, amid bitter arguments with Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, over the Gallipoli campaign. This caused Churchill’s resignation, too.

Despite this, the two remained on good terms and corresponded regularly. Fisher wrote OMG in a letter dated 9/9/17: ‘My Dear Winston, I am here for a few days longer before rejoining my “Wise men” at Victory house — “The World forgetting, By the World forgot!” but some headlines in the newspapers have utterly upset me! Terrible!! “The German Fleet to assist the Land operations in the Baltic . . . Landing the German Army South of Reval.”

‘We are five times stronger at Sea than our enemies and here is a small Fleet we could gobble up in a few minutes...Are we really incapable of a big enterprise?

‘I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!! ‘Yours, Fisher.’ Richard Duffy, Castleton, Derbys.

QUESTION Why was Neanderthal man named after the 17th-century German theologian, Joachim Neander?

FURTHER to earlier answers, the skull of a Neanderthal woman was discovered in a quarry in Gibraltar in 1848, eight years before the one discovered in the Neander valley. Perhaps the name should be ‘Gibraltar Man’.

Terry Clark, Chobham, Surrey.