Kudos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kudos (IPA: ['kü-"däs], ['kju:dɒs], from the Greek κύδος kydos (literally "that which is heard of") means fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement; by extension is often used as a praising remark. It entered English as British university slang in the early 1800s. Frequently used by Time magazine, it came to Africa in the 1920s and 1930s.^{[citation needed]}

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary states, "Some commentators hold that since kudos is a singular word it cannot be used as a plural and that the word kudo is impossible. But kudo does exist in use; it is simply one of the most recent words created by back-formation from another word misunderstood as a plural. Kudos was introduced into English in the 19th century; it was used in contexts where a reader unfamiliar with Greek could not be sure whether it was singular or plural. By the 1920s it began to appear as a plural, and about 25 years later kudo began to appear. It may have begun as a misunderstanding, but then so did cherry and pea."

Kudos is also the name of several things:

• Kudos is the name of a web-based application to motivate, recognize, and retain employees
• Kudos is also the name of a multinational company specializing in eLearning, content management, documentation outsourcing, localization
• Kudos (granola bar) is a line of granola products produced by M&M Mars.
• Kudos (production company) is a television production company in the United Kingdom.
• The QDOS, an operating system, was supposedly named so as to sound like kudos.
• Kudos are the only currency used by the Dwellers in the novel the Algebraist (by Iain M Banks). One gives and receives kudos as a reward for services as well as remarkable deeds.
• Kudos means tissue in Finnish.
• Kudos is the name of a 2006 life simulation game produced by Positech games.
• Kudos are given on MySpace when commenting on a fellow user's blog.
• Kudos is rewarded as a type of points for doing stunts in the Bizarre Creations Project Gotham Racing series and Metropolis Street Racer.
• Kudos is the name of a High Quality A2 Offset Printing company in Brisbane, Australia
• Kudos Records is the name of a Record Distribution Company in the United Kingdom
• Kudos appears in the lyric of a Foo Fighters' song: "My hero"