When you’ve been writing about the Oscars as much as I have been this week, an inevitable question pops into your head: why is an Academy Award called an Oscar? Apparently, no one is 100 percent sure. But the most accepted version of the story is that the first time the Academy librarian saw the little statue, she said that it looked like her Uncle Oscar. (Really? Because I think he looks like a golden robot.) The name took hold informally—a columnist used it in print for the first time in 1939, in a piece about Katharine Hepburn. Five years later, the Academy decided to adopt the name for themselves. Just a little trivia for you to bust out at your viewing party. [Oscars.org]
