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Today let’s talk about a very interesting emoji, which at first glance is not at all what is meant by it. This is the Goat emoji. It would seem that it is an ordinary horned animal that gives milk and supplies the population with the most delicious cheese. For someone to get such an emoticon may seem offensive at all. But it’s not that simple, because in fact to get a goat emoji today means to get a huge praise. Why? Let’s get to the bottom of it.
🐐 The Goat emoji was assigned the code U+1F410, with which it was added to the Animals and Nature section of the Unicode 6.0 standard in 2010.
In spoken English, the acronym “GOAT”, which stands for “Greatest of all time”, is now quite common. There is even a special emoji in the form of a goat, which is often used in various social networks. So today we will tell you how it all started and why you should not take offense at the goat emoji.
The word “goat” first appeared in the English-language press in the early twentieth century, and at that time it was addressed to athletes who were considered responsible for defeat. Now it is hard to say exactly when goat turned into a positive acronym, denoting such an honorable title of the greatest of all time. The first widely known mention of the acronym G.O.A.T. was in September 1992, when the wife of the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali Lonnie registered the company “G.O.A.T. Inc” (full legal name – Greatest of all time Incorporated).
Ali made no secret of the fact that he was the greatest boxer in history. His self-confidence was remarkable. In May 1971, in an interview with Havard Crimson, Muhammad said: “I wanted to be a great boxer when I was 11 years old, now I want to be the greatest of all time. Rap culture also contributed to the popularization of the acronym. In 1993, the hip-hop trio De La Soul used goat to mean “great” in their song “Lovely how I let my mind float”. And in 2000, the famous rapper LL Cool J called his track “The G.O.A.T.”, also dubbing himself the greatest.
In the early 2000s, “goat” in the good sense of the word became more and more common in interviews and articles about the NBA. For English-speaking fans, a goat has long since been viewed negatively. To receive such a nickname is a great honor. Moreover, the word GOAT was entered into the 2018 Merriam-Webster American English Dictionary as “Greatest Of All Times”.
The GOAT is a constant scandal right now. Every winning athlete calls themselves this word, but they don’t always really deserve it. OnePoll conducted a poll in the US to highlight the most annoying slang words. GOAT took the top spot by a margin, with 10% of respondents voting for it. Because it’s so often used for no reason.
By the way, Dictionary Editors conducted a study of English-language sports media and found that the last name of Tom Brady, an American soccer player, was four times more common next to the word GOAT or the goat emoji.
If you’re sent an emoji goat, don’t take offense – it’s probably a compliment. The acronym GOAT encrypts the abbreviation Greatest of All Time. This acronym, as well as emoji are often used in the address of highly qualified specialists. If you get a goat, it means you are the best in the business. In general, if someone suddenly calls you a goat, do not worry, it is only praise.
Similarly, you can encourage or praise someone for their achievements by adding a goat emoji to your message.
Of course, using this emoticon in its truest sense – as an animal, is also quite logical. But, agree, there are far fewer occasions for such use in modern life.
So, today, we told you about one of the most interesting emoji from the Unicode collection. It would seem that a goatis just an animal that can be found on many farms, a historical symbol of perseverance and fertility. But today, the name of this animal means something else entirely, and after the name came the emoji. For some cultures, it wasn’t long ago that the word “goat” was considered an insult, as was its image. And quite unexpectedly, the same animal has become an unprecedented praise!