08/19/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/19TkPFbQXH/?mibextid=wwXIfr
In 1903, a golfer at a New Jersey country club invented a word that every golfer on earth now uses without a second thought. 🐦
At Atlantic City Country Club, a golfer named Ab Smith hit his second shot on a par four to within inches of the cup and called it a "bird of a shot," using slang of the era where "bird" meant something excellent. His group started calling any hole finished one under par a birdie as a running joke, and the term spread from that single foursome to golfers everywhere. Once "birdie" caught on internationally, golfers extended the same bird theme further, coining "eagle" for two under and eventually "albatross" for the rare three-under score. ⛳
A slang joke among friends on one ordinary afternoon in New Jersey somehow became permanent scoring vocabulary in nearly every language golf is played in today. What's a piece of everyday slang you use constantly that actually started as somebody's inside joke?
