Why do we call it The News? What does it stand for?

[bengalcatshed]

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It doesn’t stand for anything, it’s just about ‘new information’ 🤷🏻‍♀️

The etymology dates back to the 14th century.
News>new things>from French>the News>reports or announcements about said new things.

My mind was blown on that other thread too!

It's nice to think it is indeed North, East, West and South but since it is les Nouvelles in french then I sincerely doubt it. Might as well say it stands for "Nothing Ever Went Smoothly" or "Now Everything's Well Shit"

Don't know what other thread, but that's a common and ridiculous urban myth that it stands for north, east, south and west 😂

Someone told me if stands for Notable Events Weather and Sport but I think that's unlikely.

News- new things. All the acronym explanations are false etymologies, as you can see from the fact that it wasn’t always spelled ‘news’.

Words deriving from acronyms are a fairly new thing so be suspicious if anyone telling you that older words derive from acronyms (‘fuck’, ‘posh’, ‘golf’ etc).

It's not an acronym. It's derives from Latin and just means new things.

And did that someone think that centuries ago people predicted the future format of TV news broadcasts 😂😂

Always thought it came from French - les nouvelles = the news. Much of our language came over with the Normans. Naturally TV, radio and newspaper news is a more recent thing. But I'm pretty sure in Shakespeare and Austin characters ask 'What news?' and the like, meaning much the same thing.

Ask any of the people on the other thread who claim it's an acronym to provide evidence from a reputable dictionary to back that up. They can't because it's not. You can make a backronym from it by throwing together any collection of words that start with n e w s, but it's actual etymology is from Latin, meaning new things.

I thought it was a public information reminder...
Never Eat White Sugar,
or was it...
Never Eat Wasp Stings,
I'm pretty sure it was one or the other.

Well it was a teenager, so quite possibly! 😁

'New' , as an adjective, has a long history, going back to Old English 'niwe' and its related ancestors:

new | Etymology of new by etymonline

'News' as a pluralised noun, has been used, as other posters stated, since the late 14th century and is probably derived from the French 'nouvelles' (new things). Prior to that 'tidings' may have been used:

etymology - Where does the word "News" come from? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

The first recorded use of 'newspaper' which preceded broadcasted news on TV and radio, in the UK was 1667 (according to the OED)

There is a really interesting article about the history of printed news here:

From Town Criers to Newsprint: The Evolution of Early Newspapers in England | ETEC540: Text, Technologies – Community Weblog (ubc.ca)

Yes, I was going to post the above link and say out this on the other thread.
I often use it when people whinge about "new Americanisms creeping across" (they tend to be traceable back to old English a long time before America had even been discovered, but people do like to assert their opinions)

I heard that it developed in medieval times from when people went to market (from outlying farms and villages pre mass communications) and said "what's new?" But in regional dialect is was pronounced news and it stuck. Seems a credible explanation but no idea of accuracy

As someone said above, it's just the plural of New. As in new events and information

News = newness

OP did you know many dictionaries include the origin of each word