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The Hilarious History of 'OK'

  

Category:  Other

Via:  hallux  •  2 years ago  •  9 comments

By:   Some one at Merriam Webster

The Hilarious History of 'OK'
The English language's most successful export is a joke

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



Here's a quiz: let's say you're setting off to see the world and aside from   please   and   thank you   in a smattering of languages you pretty much only know English. What is the one word that most of the people you encounter will also know?

That's right. It's   OK .

Yep. It's very probably the most widely recognized word in the world. And its origin story is literally a joke.

The definitive text on the subject is by professor Allan Metcalf, whose   OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word , based on the research of historian Allen Walker Read, was published in 2010. Metcalf traces the word's birth to a bit of jocular text in an 1839 article in the   Boston Morning Post —a little jab from one newspaper editor to another, suggesting that his cohort in Providence, Rhode Island, should sponsor a party for some boisterous Boston lads who might be stopping by his town:


... he of the [Providence] Journal, and his   train -band, would have the 'contributions box,' et ceteras,   o.k. —all correct—and cause the corks to fly…"

But let's back up for a minute and establish our setting. Newspapers in the 19th century existed before the advent of wire services, and American newspapers got most of their out-of-town news from other newspapers they exchanged copies with. The papers weren't cramped for space, and they'd also print humor, poetry, fiction, and jabs at other newspapers. The quote above is part of a humorous reply to an item reprinted from the Providence paper.

Despite plenty of space, there was an abbreviation fad in newspapers of the time that might remind one of our own time. Perhaps a friend has sent you an electronic message containing   brb , for "be right back"? Or maybe you've assessed an article as   TL;DR ? Let us present for comparison the 1839 New York newspaper report of a fashionable young woman remarking to her male friend "O.K.K.B.W.P.": her alphabetic litany was answered with a kiss and reported to translate as "one kind kiss before we part." Take that, Internet.

The 1820s and 1830s shared another linguistic fad with today: an appreciation for deliberate misspellings. (Kewl, rite?) This trend, which had humorists adopting now-cringey bumpkin personas with ignorance manifested in uneducated spellings, turned   no go   into   know go   and   no use   into   know yuse   (lol). Abbreviations were not immune, and   no go   became   K.G. . So too   all right   became   O.W. , as an abbreviation for   oll wright . And   all correct   became   o.k. , as an abbreviation for   oll korrect .

Although   OK   became one of the more commonly used initialisms, it might have passed into oblivion when the linguistic fad had passed if not for the presidential election of 1840, when Martin Van Buren was given the nickname of "Old Kinderhook" because of his hometown of Kinderhook, NY. The Van Buren   stans   who joined "OK Clubs" nationwide were themselves, they proclaimed, "OK." Their campaign was memorable enough to have both popularized the word and to have hijacked the story of its origin: there are today still those who believe that "Old Kinderhook" is the original meaning of   OK .

As   OK   spread (helped along by the advent of the telegraph), its origin story was a topic of much speculation. "Old Kinderhook" persisted, and various linguistic ancestors from various languages were also proposed, with forebears from Latin, Greek, Scottish, French, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon via Swedish, Mandingo, and Wolof all being offered. The most persistent of these ancestors was the Choctaw word   okeh . This etymon was suggested in 1885, with Andrew Jackson supposedly having borrowed the word from members of the Choctaw tribe. Woodrow Wilson was a believer: he wrote   okeh   on papers he approved. He was asked why he did not use   O.K.   "Because it is wrong," he replied.

O.K.   is of course not wrong. And speaking of "wrong,"   OK   and   okay   aren't wrong either; they are the dominant forms, though the lowercase   ok   is also fully established.

Although the longer   okay   may look like the more reputable member of the language, it's not, as we've seen, justified by etymology. It has its supporters, though, with Louisa May Alcott being among the early adopters:


One of us must marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't yet, so I shall, and make everything okay all round.
  Little Women , 1868-9


As Professor Metcalf notes in   an illuminating blog post   all about the   okay   spelling, the 1880 edition of   Little Women   included neither   okay   nor   OK , opting instead for the word   cozy . Um, OK.


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Hallux
Professor Principal
1  seeder  Hallux    2 years ago

Just a little something to take your minds in a far more enjoyable direction than today's meta attempt.

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
1.1  Split Personality  replied to  Hallux @1    2 years ago

Thank yew!

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2  JBB    2 years ago

Okay...

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3  Buzz of the Orient    2 years ago

I consider myself to be acronym disadvantaged.  OK is okay, but I have to look lots of them up on an acronym dictionary which can sometimes have multiple translations for them.  Of course, nowadays due to texting acronyms flourish, so CUL8R.

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
4  evilone    2 years ago

Totes my goats!

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
5  devangelical    2 years ago

I've discovered that uh-oh is somewhat international too.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
6  Kavika     2 years ago

okie dokie

 
 
 
Hallux
Professor Principal
6.1  seeder  Hallux  replied to  Kavika @6    2 years ago

You got somethin' agin' the Choctaw ... shouldn't that be okeh dokeh?

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
6.1.1  Split Personality  replied to  Hallux @6.1    2 years ago
oll or orl korrect representing all correct, first attested in boston in 1839, then used in 1840 by democrat partisans of martin van buren, Oll korrect - definition of Oll korrect by The Free Dictionary

Geez, those darned Democrats did it again, lol.

 
 

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