Anyone happen to know how the word news came about to describe the detailing of current events? I always assumed the obvious…these things were new, thus they were dubbed “news.” But someone tried to tell me that it stood for “north, east, west, south.” I think that’s just dumb, but can anyone track this down?
Welcome to the SDMB, epraz! This is an urban legend, debunked by snopes.
Arjuna34
The north, east, west, south origin is also dismissed by Brewer, who goes on to say:
'This supposition is destroyed by by the old spelling newes; it is from the French nouvelles…The word news is now nearly always construed as singular (“The news is very good”), but it was formerly treated as a plural, and in The Letters Of Queen Victoria the Queen and most of her correspondents so treated it.
To the King of the Belgians, 20 August 1861:
The news from Austria are very sad, and make one very anxious.