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You are here: Home / Language / How Did the Letters in the Word “News” Become an Acronym for North, East, West, and South?

How Did the Letters in the Word “News” Become an Acronym for North, East, West, and South?

June 16, 2020 by Karen Hill

Some early news sheets were headed with N-E-W-S as points of a compass, but it was simply a clever gimmick.

How Did the Letters in the Word

The word news predates these publications and emerged with its current meaning within a letter written by King James of Scotland in 1423.

In 1616, his descendant, James I of England, wrote another letter, which included the first recorded use of “No news is good news.”

Another theory is that news was developed as a special use of the plural form of new in the 14th century.

The equivalent word was newes in Middle English.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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