I suppose I've used the term dozens of times in TYWKIWDBI, always assuming that the piece to which I was linking was someone's opinion written on an editorial page of a journal.
But, as I browsed Why the New York Times is Retiring the Term 'Op-Ed', I discovered that the term was created as an abbreviation for opposite the editorial because it was geographically located on a newspaper page opposite from the editorial page.
You learn something every day.
Not gonna lie, I had NO IDEA this is what it meant, despite working on newspapers for a few years (not since 2oo2 but still...)
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post.
Whut! Next you gonna tell me a sitcom is not about people sitting. (I genuinely thought this for a while. I was young.)
ReplyDeleteall those people who wrote 'op-ed' pieces that have appeared in so many non-NYTimes publications - they will be so disappointed to find that what they wrote was a 'spouting fa-la-lah' and not an 'opinion - editorial'.
ReplyDeleteI-)
Worked for newspapers in my very early years and it happens I knew this...but at this point it is more confusing than anything.
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