When Jimmy Carter was in the White House, the hashtag was still the humble pound sign and social media was decades away.
But the former president, now 99, proved he was a man ahead of his time when, as a charmed young naval officer in the 1940s, he coined the acronym “ILYTG.”
“‘I love you best.’ That’s what my mom and dad said back and forth, and I picked it up with Rosa,” the nation’s 39th president told PEOPLE in 2014, in a joint interview with his wife of decades, Rosalynn Carter, who has died 11. 19 at the age of 96.
Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter Relationship Timeline
The couple credited their longevity to giving each other space, as well as their shared passion for service: In their 90s, they traveled the world — to build houses in Nepal or fight river blindness in South Sudan — with the Carter Center.
The monogram was inscribed on a compact that he once gave to his bride, the future first lady, and which is now on display at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta.
“Now all our kids do the same thing – ILYTG on the phone or in the email. They usually just put in the initials,” President Carter said. “And sometimes they change the initials and make you guess what they’re talking about.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education