The word okay come from

OK (; spelling variations include okay, O.K., ok and Ok) is an English word (originating in American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet.^[1]

OK’s origins are disputed; however, most modern reference works hold that it originated around Boston as part of a fad for misspelling in the late 1830s, and originally stood for «oll korrect [all correct]». This origin was first described by linguist Allen Walker Read in the 1960s.

As an adjective, OK principally means «adequate» or «acceptable» as a contrast to «bad» («The boss approved this, so it is OK to send out»); it can also mean «mediocre» when used in contrast with «good» («The french fries were great, but the burger was just OK»). It fulfills a similar role as an adverb («Wow, you did OK for your first time skiing!»). As an interjection, it can denote compliance («OK, I will do that»),^[2] or agreement («OK, that is fine»). It can mean «assent» when it is used as a noun («the boss gave her the OK to the purchase») or, more colloquially, as a verb («the boss OKed the purchase»). OK, as an adjective, can express acknowledgement without approval.^[3] As a versatile discourse marker or continuer, it can also be used with appropriate intonation to show doubt or to seek confirmation («OK?», «Is that OK?»).^[4][2] Some of this variation in use and shape of the word is also found in other languages.^[5]

The etymologies of OK

Many explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by linguists. The following proposals have found mainstream recognition.^[6]

Boston abbreviation fad

The etymology that most reference works provide today is based on a survey of the word’s early history in print: a series of six articles by Allen Walker Read^[7] in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]} He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later throughout the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding OK and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself. Read argues that, at the time of the expression’s first appearance in print, a broader fad existed in the United States of «comical misspellings» and of forming and employing acronyms, themselves based on colloquial speech patterns:

The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 … and used expressions like OFM, «our first men,» NG, «no go,» GT, «gone to Texas,» and SP, «small potatoes.» Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, «oll wright.»^[15]

The general fad is speculated to have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OK‘s original presentation as «all correct» was later varied with spellings such as «Oll Korrect» or even «Ole Kurreck».

The term appears to have achieved national prominence in 1840, when supporters of the Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election that it stood for «Old Kinderhook», a nickname for the Democratic president and candidate for reelection, Martin Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, New York. «Vote for OK» was snappier than using his Dutch name.^[16] In response, Whig opponents attributed OK, in the sense of «Oll Korrect», to the bad spelling of Andrew Jackson, Van Buren’s predecessor. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in OK‘s history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States.

Read proposed an etymology of OK in «Old Kinderhook» in 1941.^[17] The evidence presented in that article was somewhat sparse, and the connection to «Oll Korrect» not fully elucidated. Various challenges to the etymology were presented; e.g., Heflin’s 1962 article.^[18] However, Read’s landmark 1963–1964 papers silenced most of the skepticism. Read’s etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is now offered without reservation in most dictionaries.^[8] Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations:

Some believe that the Boston newspaper’s reference to OK may not be the earliest. Some are attracted to the claim that it is of American-Indian origin. There is an Indian word, okeh, used as an affirmative reply to a question. Mr Read treated such doubting calmly. «Nothing is absolute,» he once wrote, «nothing is forever.»^[16]

Choctaw

In «All Mixed Up», the folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw origin,^[19] as the dictionaries of the time tended to agree. Three major American reference works (Webster’s, New Century, Funk & Wagnalls) cited this etymology as the probable origin until as late as 1961.^[19]

The earliest written evidence for the Choctaw origin is provided in work by the Christian missionaries Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright in 1825.^{[citation needed]} These missionaries ended many sentences in their translation of the Bible with the particle «okeh», meaning «it is so»,^{[citation needed]} which was listed as an alternative spelling in the 1913 Webster’s.^[20]

Byington’s Dictionary of the Choctaw Language confirms the ubiquity of the «okeh» particle,^[21] and his Grammar of the Choctaw Language calls the particle -keh an «affirmative contradistinctive», with the «distinctive» o- prefix.^[22]

Subsequent Choctaw spelling books de-emphasized the spellings lists in favor of straight prose, and they made use of the particle[,] but they too never included it in the word lists or discussed it directly. The presumption was that the use of particle «oke» or «hoke» was so common and self-evident as to preclude any need for explanation or discussion for either its Choctaw or non-Choctaw readership.^[19]

The Choctaw language was one of the languages spoken at this time in the Southeastern United States by a tribe with significant contact with African slaves.^[23] The major language of trade in this area, Mobilian Jargon, was based on Choctaw-Chickasaw, two Muskogean-family languages. This language was used, in particular, for communication with the slave-owning^[24][25] Cherokee (an Iroquoian-family language).^[26][27] For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the US government,^[28] after having fought alongside them at the Battle of New Orleans.

Arguments for a more Southern origin for the word note the tendency of English to adopt loan words in language contact situations, as well as the ubiquity of the OK particle. Similar particles exist in native language groups distinct from Iroquoian (Algonquian, Cree cf. «ekosi»).

West African

A verifiable early written attestation of the particle ‘kay’ is from transcription by Smyth (1784) of a North Carolina slave not wanting to be flogged by a European visiting America:

Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe; …^[29]

A West African (Mande and/or Bantu) etymology has been argued in scholarly sources, tracing the word back to the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka «Mandinke» or «Mandingo») phrase o ke.

David Dalby first made the claim that the particle OK could have African origins in the 1969 Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture. His argument was reprinted in various newspaper articles between 1969 and 1971.^[30] This suggestion has also been mentioned by Joseph Holloway, who argued in the 1993 book The African Heritage of American English (co-written with a retired missionary) that various West African languages have near-homophone discourse markers with meanings such as «yes indeed» or which serve as part of the back-channeling repertoire.^[4][31] Frederic Cassidy challenged Dalby’s claims, asserting that there is no documentary evidence that any of these African-language words had any causal link with its use in the American press.^[30]

The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists,^[30][32][33] yet has since appeared in scholarly sources published by linguists and non-linguists alike.^[34]

Alternative etymologies

A large number of origins have been proposed. Some of them are thought to fall into the category of folk etymology and are proposed based merely on apparent similarity between OK and one or another phrase in a foreign language with a similar meaning and sound. Some examples are:

• A corruption from the speech of the large number of descendants of Scottish and Ulster Scots (Scots-Irish) immigrants to North America, of the common Scots phrase och aye («oh yes»).^[12]
• A borrowing of the Greek phrase όλα καλά (óla kalá), meaning «all good».^[35]

Early history

Allen Walker Read identifies the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the edition of 23 March of the Boston Morning Post. The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a «frolicsome group» according to Read) received attention from the Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using the line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of OK, complete with gloss:

The above is from the Providence Journal, the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing «through the city» of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The «Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells,» is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his «contribution box,» et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.

Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied with glosses that were variations on «all correct» such as «oll korrect» or «ole kurreck», but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that the word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time.

Various claims of earlier usage have been made. For example, it was claimed that the phrase appeared in a 1790 court record from Sumner County, Tennessee, discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam, in which Andrew Jackson apparently said «proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for a Negro man, which was O.K.».^[36] However, Read challenged such claims, and his assertions have been generally accepted. The lawyer who successfully argued many Indian rights claims,^{[clarification needed (Who?)]} however, supports the Jacksonian popularization of the term based on its Choctaw origin.^[37]

David Dalby brought up a 1941 reference dating the term to 1815. The apparent notation «we arrived ok» appears in the hand-written diary of William Richardson traveling from Boston to New Orleans about a month after the Battle of New Orleans.^[38] However, Frederic Cassidy asserts that he personally tracked down this diary, writing:

After many attempts to track down this diary, Read and I at last discovered that it is owned by the grandson of the original writer, Professor L. Richardson, Jr., of the Department of Classical Studies at Duke University. Through his courtesy we were able to examine this manuscript carefully, to make greatly enlarged photographs of it, and to become convinced (as is Richardson) that, whatever the marks in the manuscript are, they are not OK.^[30]

Similarly, H. L. Mencken, who originally considered it «very clear that ‘o. k.’ is actually in the manuscript»,^[39] later recanted his endorsement of the expression, asserting that it was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken (following Read) described the diary entry as a misreading of the author’s self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.^[40]

Another example given by Dalby is a Jamaican planter’s diary of 1816, which records a black slave saying «Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him».^[41] Cassidy asserts that this is a misreading of the source, which actually begins «Oh, ki, massa …», where ki is a phrase by itself:

In all other examples of this interjection that I have found, it is simply ki (once spelled kie). As here, it expresses surprise, amusement, satisfaction, mild expostulation, and the like. It has nothing like the meaning of the adjective OK, which in the earliest recorded examples means ‘all right, good,’ though it later acquires other meanings, but even when used as an interjection does not express surprise, expostulation, or anything similar.^[30]

Variations

Whether this word is printed as OK, Ok, ok, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus.^[42]

Variation	Where used / Origins
okeh	Choctaw word for ‘it is so’ (see above). An alternative English spelling, no longer common,[20] although it remained in sporadic use well into the 20th century.[43][44][45] Also see Okeh Records.
hokay	Used in English as an alternative.
kay or ‘kay	Notably used in Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny as a filler word by the maniacal Captain Queeg.[citation needed]
k or kk or oka	Commonly used in instant messaging, or in SMS messages. Before the days of SMS, «K» was used as a Morse code prosign for «Go Ahead».
okay okay	Reduplicated okay. Used in a variety of languages, including Japanese and Korean.[46]
Okie dokie	This slang term was popularized in the film «The Little Rascals» (Oki doki). Also with alternate spellings, including okeydoke.[47] The phrase can be extended further, e.g. «Okie dokie (aka) pokie / smokie / artichokie / karaoke / lokie,» etc.[48][49] Also adopted into other languages, e.g. in Dutch, in such spellings as okiedokie,[50] or Okie Dokie.[51]
ô-kê	Used in Vietnam; okey also used, but ok more commonly.[52]
okei	Used in Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and Estonian (together with OK or ok)
okey	Used in Catalan, Faroese, Filipino, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, sounding similar to the English pronunciation OK.
okej	Used in Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Macedonian, Swedish, Esperanto, and sometimes Latvian; ok also used, but considered to be a part of more colloquial internet language.[53]
oké	Used in Dutch and Hungarian. In Dutch, oke, ok and okay are also used, but are less common in the formal written language.[54]
okå	Used in Norway. Pronounced the same way as OK; the spelling arises from the pronunciation of the individual letters O and K in Norwegian. Okei and oukei are also commonly used written or spoken.[55]
ookoo	Used in Finland. Pronounced the same way as OK; the spelling arises from the pronunciation of the individual letters in Finnish.[56]
oquei and ocá	Nowadays, rarely used in Portuguese, but once a fad in Brazil. Pronounced as the English OK or following the names of the letters in Portuguese (oh-kah). In written Portuguese, still very much used as OK.
oukej	Used in Czech and Slovak. Pronounced as the English OK. When written OK, it is pronounced [o:ka:]. Neither version recognized as official.
owkej	Used in Maltese. Pronounced as the English OK.
oukei	Used in colloquial Afrikaans. Pronounced also as OK.
או קיי	Used in colloquial Modern Hebrew. Pronounced also as OK.
O.K.	Used in Greek. The abbreviation is pronounced as the English okay. A myth is circulated by some[who?] in Greece that ‘OK’ can be traced back to the Greek expression ‘Όλα Καλά’, which means ‘all is well’.
A-OK	A more technical-sounding variation popularized by NASA in 1961.[57]
M’kay	Slang term popularized by South Park TV show. Pronounced also as «Mmmm K». This variation has connotations of sarcasm, such as condescending disagreement.
Okily Dokily!	Catchphrase used by Ned Flanders in The Simpsons.
اوكي	Used in Arabic. Pronounced also as OK.
โอเค	Thai. Pronounced «o khe».[58]

Usage

In 1961, NASA popularized the variant «A-OK» during the launch of Alan Shepard’s Mercury mission.^[59]

International usage

In Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and other Latin American countries, the word is pronounced just as it is in English and is used very frequently. Spanish speakers often spell the word «okey» to conform with the spelling rules of the language. In Brazil, it may be also pronounced as «ô-kei». In Portugal, it is used with its Portuguese pronunciation and sounds something like «ókâi» (similar to the English pronunciation but with the «ó» sounding like the «o» in «lost» or «top»), or even as ‘oh-kapa’, from the letters O (‘ó’) and K (‘capa’). In Spain it’s much less common than in Latin American countries (words such as «vale» are preferred) but it may still be heard.

In Flanders and the Netherlands, OK has become part of the everyday Dutch language. It is pronounced the same way.

Arabic speakers also use the word (أوكي) widely, particularly in areas of former British presence like Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine and Iraq, but also all over the Arab world due to the prevalence of American cinema and television. It is pronounced just as it is in English but is very rarely seen in Arabic newspapers and formal media.

In Hebrew, the word OK is common as an equivalent to the Hebrew word בסדר [b’seder] (‘adequate’, ‘in order’). It is written as it sounds in English אוקיי.

It is used in Japan and Korea in a somewhat restricted sense, fairly equivalent to «all right». OK is often used in colloquial Japanese as a replacement for 大丈夫 (daijōbu «all right») or いい (ii «good») and often followed by です (desu – the copula). A transliteration of the English word, written as オーケー (lit. «ōkē») or オッケー (lit. «okkē») is also often used in the same manner as the English, and is becoming increasingly popular. In Korean, 오케이 (literally «okay») can be used colloquially in place of 네 (ne, «yes») when expressing approval or acknowledgment.

In Chinese, the term 好; hǎo (literally: «good»), can be modified to fit most of usages of OK. For example, 好了; hǎo le closely resembles the interjection usage of OK. The «了» indicates a change of state; in this case it indicates the achievement of consensus. Likewise, OK is commonly transformed into «OK了» (OK le) when communicating with foreigners or with fellow Cantonese speaking people in at least Hong Kong and possibly to an extent other regions of China.^[60] Other usages of OK such as «I am OK» can be translated as 我还好; wǒ hái hǎo. In Hong Kong, movies or dramas set in modern times use the term okay as part of the sprinkling of English included in otherwise Cantonese dialog. In Mandarin Chinese it is also somewhat humorously used in the «spelling» of the word for karaoke, «卡拉OK», pronounced «kah-lah-oh-kei» (Mandarin does not natively have a syllable with the pronunciation «kei»). On the computer, OK is usually translated as 确定; quèdìng, which means «confirm» or «confirmed».

In Taiwan, OK is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the aforementioned «OK了» (Okay le), «OK嗎» (Okay ma), meaning «Is it okay?» or «OK啦» (Okay la), a strong, persuading affirmative, as well as the somewhat tongue-in-cheek explicit yes/no construction «O不OK？» (O bù OK?), «Is it OK or not?»

In Russia, OK is used very frequently for any positive meaning. The word in Russian has many morphologies: «окей», «океюшки», «ок», «окейно», etc.

In France and Belgium, OK is used to communicate agreement, and is generally followed by a French phrase (e.g. OK, d’accord, «Okay, chef») or another borrowing (e.g., OK, boss. ok, bye.). Rarely pronounced /ɔk/ these days, except by young children encountering dialog boxes for the first times.

In the Philippines, «okay lang» is a common expression that literally means «it’s okay» or «it’s fine». It is sometimes spelled as okey.

In Malay, it is frequently used with the emphatic suffix «lah»: OK-lah.

In Vietnamese, it is spelled «Ô-kê».

In India, it is often used after a sentence to mean «did you get it?», often not regarded politely, for example, «I want this job done, OK?» or at the end of a conversation (mostly on the phone) followed by «bye» as in «OK, bye.»

In Indonesia, OK or oke is also used as a slogan of national television network RCTI since 1994.

In Pakistan, OK has become a part of Urdu and Punjabi languages.

In Germany, OK is spelled as o.k. or O.K. or okay. It may be pronounced as in English, but /ɔˈkeː/ or /oˈkeː/ are also common.^[61] The meaning ranges from acknowledgement to describing something neither good nor bad, same as in US/UK usage.

In Maldivian Okay is used in different ways, often used to agree with something, more often used while departing from a gathering «Okay Dahnee/Kendee.»

In Singapore, OK is often used with suffixes used in «Singlish» such as OK lor, OK lah, OK meh, OK leh, which are used in different occasions.

Gesture

In the United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers.^[62] It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in the United States in 1840 as a symbol to support then-presidential candidate and incumbent vice president Martin Van Buren. This was because Van Buren’s nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O.K.^[62] Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive, others devotional.^[63][64]

Computers

OK is used to label buttons in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user can press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. When the dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled OK. When there are two buttons, they are most commonly labeled OK and Cancel. OK is commonly rendered in upper case and without punctuation: OK, rather than O.K. or Okay. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa.^[65]

The Forth programming language prints ok when ready to accept input from the keyboard. This prompt is used on Sun, Apple, and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot). The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts is the subject of some humor.^[66]

In the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol also defines a response, 200 OK, which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261).

Some Linux distributions, including those based on Red Hat Linux, display boot progress on successive lines on-screen, which include [ OK ].

In Unicode

Several Unicode characters are related to visual renderings of OK:

• U+1F197 🆗 SQUARED OK
• U+1F44C 👌 OK HAND SIGN
• U+1F44D 👍 THUMBS UP SIGN
• U+1F592 🖒 REVERSED THUMBS UP SIGN
• U+1F646 🙆 FACE WITH OK GESTURE

Notes

References

Further reading

• Metcalf, Allan. (2011). OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-537793-4
• Betz, Emma; Deppermann, Arnulf; Mondada, Lorenza; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (2021). OKAY across Languages: Toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction 34. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/slsi.34. hdl:10138/339675. ISBN 9789027260284. S2CID 243148719.

External links

• Why we say “OK” — Vox News produced video
• The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
• Ok. Let’s continue.
• NPR: The Origin of OK (audio)
• FAQ: «OK»
• BBC: How ‘OK’ took over the world. Retrieved 18 February 2011.

Historical discussions of the origin of ‘OK’

Here are some discussions of the etymology of OK through the years, arranged chronologically.

From «Great Rally of the Democracy, State Convention,» in the Burlington [Vermont] Free Press (July 13, 1840):

After the resolutions had been read [at the Whig party’s Vermont state convention] Mr. [Charles] ADAMS made some remarks in support of them, partly as he remarked, because he was a citizen of this state and partly because he was one of the committee which reported them. … Mr. A. said that he noticed upon the banner at the head of one of the county delegations [from New York] the letters O. K. and that he had asked an explanation of their signification. He learned that while Gen. Jackson was president, he was in the habit of marking those bills which received his approval with these letters, as the initials of all correct: but he said that the feelings and judgment of the people now gave to them the more significant meaning of off to Kinderhook [the hometown of President Van Buren, a Democrat].

From The [Washington, D.C.] Madisonian (October 9, 1840):

The following definitions of O. K. are from the Baltimore Clipper. They are highly amusing:

«Vat zey mean by ze letter O. K., vich I see every day, almost two, tree, eleven times, in ze journal politique of ze day?» asked a French gentleman in a crowd yesterday. «I read ze grand national affair and ven I come to ze end I behold O. K! I glance my eye to ze report of ze election, and he begin wiz O. K. Every ting has O. K.—and I never shall comprehend him.»

«Why sir,» answered one of the company, looking very knowingly, «it means oll korrect-«

«No. mounseer,» said another, «it stands for orful katastrophe.»

«You’re mistaken,» says a third, «it means oll for Kent.»

…

«That’s wrong,» says an eighth, «it means that the political writers having exhausted all the words in the English dictionary, have been compelled to resort to single letters to express themselves. Therefore it’s oll kompelled.»

So the Frenchman was just as wise as ever.

From Maximilian Schele de Vere, Americanisms: The English of the New World (1872):

American politics abound in catch-words, the great majority of which pass away with the accident that gave them birth, while others please the fancy of the populace or acquire, by an unexpected success, such a hold on the public mind as to secure to them a longer lease of life. One of these is as ludicrous in its origin as tenacious in its persistency in the slang of the day. The story goes that General Jackson, better known in American history as Old Hickory, was not much at home in the art of spelling, and his friend and admirer, Major Jack Downing, found therefore no difficulty in convincing the readers of his «Letters» that the President employed the letters O. K. as an endorsement of applications for office and other papers. They were intended to stand for ‘All Correct,’ which the old gentleman preferred writing Oll Korrect, and hence they are used, to this day, very much in the sense of the English «All Right.»

From W.S. Wyman, «Replies,» in The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries (August 1885):

In the language of the Choctaw Indians, one of the most frequently recurring expressions is the emphatic oke, with which an affirmation or denial is concluded. This oke (pronounced with strong accent on the last syllable) is one of the substitutes for the copulative verb to be which is wanted in Choctaw. Oke, as pronounced in Choctaw, has exactly the same sound as the alphabetic pronunciation of the letters O. K. in English.

The meaning of the expression, as nearly as it can be conveyed in English is: «That is true;» «That is all so.» …

To General Andrew Jackson is attributed the introduction of the Choctaw word into our Anglo-American speech. Before the war of 1812, in voyages up and down the Mississippi and in trading expeditions overland from Nashville, Tenn., to Natchez, Miss., through the Choctaw Nation, he was brought into frequent communication with the Choctaws.

General Jackson, as everybody knows, was prone to the use of downright and energetic methods of assertion. Hearing this emphatic oke so frequently uttered by the Choctaw people, he learned the meaning conveyed by it to the Choctaw mind, and appropriated it, out of hand, to his own purposes. From him it passed over to the multitude. This account of the origin of O. K. has been current in the South for many years. If not true, it is, to say the least, ben trovato.

From John Stephen Farmer, Americanisms—Old & New (1889):

O. K.—All right; all correct. Authorities differ as to the precise origin of this expression. The initials O. K. are supposed to stand for «all correct.» The most likely derivation seems that told by De Vere, to the effect that General Jackson, better known in American history as Old Hickory, who was not much at home in the art of spelling, and that he employed the letters O. K. as an endorsement of applications for office and other papers, intending them to stand for «oll (orl) correct (korrect)».

From Charles Norton, Political Americanisms: A Glossary of Terms and Phrases Current at Different Periods in American Politics (1890):

O. K.—A common abbreviation for » all correct.» The story runs that Andrew Jackson (President, 1825–33) puzzled his secretary by endorsing «O. K.» on official papers that met his approval. Inquiry brought out the information that it stood for «all correct,» and the secretary was left to infer that his chief spelled it «orl korrect.» No doubt the story is a gross exaggeration, manufactured for campaign purposes, though it is admitted that Jackson was more of a soldier than a scholar.

From Albert Barrere & Charles Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume 2 (1890):

O.K. (American telegraph), all correct, used to denote the line is clear, also to express anything very nice. An expression first attributed to President Jackson, who was said to have written O.K. for «all correct.»

From Webster’s International Dictionary (1890), in an appendix of «Abbreviations and Contractions Used in Writing and Printing» (the main text has no entry for OK):

O. K. All correct.

From James Maitland, The American Slang Dictionary (1891):

O. K. (Am.), an alleged condensation of «Orl Korrect» a misspelling of all correct. To «O. K.» an account is to initial it in evidence of its correctness, and as the two letters are easily written the practice has become common in business circles.

From W. S. Wyman, «The Origin of ‘O. K.'» in The Century Illustrated Magazine (1894):

The true explanation of O. K. is probably as follows: There is a tradition among the intelligent Choctaws of the old stock who once lived in Mississippi that General Jackson borrowed the expression O. K. from the Choctaw language.

…

General Jackson was frequently among the Choctaws and Chickasaws before he became famous. he must have heard this expression [okéh, meaning «It is true,» «It is so,» «It is all right,» etc.] often.

From The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1897) [entry retained in editions through 1906]:

O. K. {Origin obscure: usually said to have been orig. used by Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, as an abbr. of All Correct, spelled (whether through ignorance or humorously) oll korrect; but this is doubtless an invention. Another statement refers the use to «Old Keokuk,» an Indian chief who is said to have signed treaties with the initials «O. K.»} All right; correct: now commonly used as an indorsement, as on a bill. {Colloq.}

From The New International Encyclopædia, volume 13 (1903):

O. K. The story that General Jackson used these letters to indorse official papers as correct seems to have been started by Seba Smith (Major Downing), the humorist. It was a hit at Jackson’s supposed illiteracy, and at a party cry during the Presidential campaign of 1832 acquired great vogue. Parton states that Jackson used to indorse legal documents O. R., order recorded, and the mistaking of the letters was probably the basis of Downing’s jest. The term is also said to have originated with Josh Billings and has been ascribed to several other persons. Jacob Astor is said to have used it to indicate the standing of traders about whom he was questioned. In colonial days, the best tobacco and rum were imported from Aux Cayes, and from this fact Aux Cayes (O Kay) became a popular expression for excellence.

From The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1911) [repeated in the 1914 edition]:

O. K. {A humorous or ignorant spelling of what should be okeh, < Choctaw (Chakta) okeh, an ‘article pronoun,’ a kind of adjunct, meaning ‘it is so,’ having in the ‘predicative form’ a ‘distinctive and final’ use, ‘okeh, it is so and in no other way’; also interjectionally, ‘yai okeh, thanks to you’ (Byington, «Grammar of the Choctaw Lang.» p. 55); a use that may be compared with that of the Hebrew and European amen.} All right; correct: now commonly used as an indorsement, as on a bill. {Colloq.}

From Richard Thornton, An American Glossary, volume 2 (1912):

O.K. {See quotation 1828} A certificate of correctness. To O.K. a bill is to pronounce it correct.

The phrase was certainly used by Andrew Jackson. He may have taken it from the Choctaw Oke or Hoke, meaning «It is so.» See Mag. Am. Hist. xiv. 212–213 (1885); also Century Mag., xlviii. 958–9 (1894). Or it may have been a mistake originally for O.R. The records of Sumner County, Tenn., contain this entry :— «October 6th, 1790. Andrew Jackson, Esq., proved a Bill of Sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for a negro man, which was O.K.» Mr. James Parton (‘Life of Jackson,’ i. 136) suggests that this was a common western mistake for O.R., i.e., Ordered Recorded. See Mr. Matthews in Notes and Queries 11. S. iii. 390. The latter solution is probable.

[Earliest two cited instances:] 1828 In the Presidential campaign of 1828, General Jackson was accused by some of his opponents of being illiterate. It was alleged that he spelled the words «all correct» thus, «oll Korrct.» Hence originated the abbreviation O.K.—Peter H. Burnett, ‘Recollections,’ p. 45 (N.Y. 1880). 1841 Jeremiah would be ashamed of his Lamentations, were he here to hear the modern Whigs mourning over the distresses of the people on account of a weak Treasury. O.K. Orful Kalamity.—Mr. Reynolds of Illinois, House of Repr., Feb. 5: Cong. Globe, p. 141, App.

From Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, third edition (1916), again in the «Abbreviations Used in Writing and Printing» appendix [same in the fourth edition (1931)]:

O.K, or OK. Correct; all right. Cant.

From «O-K-E-H» in the [Valley City, North Dakota] Weekly Times-Record (September 26, 1918):

Somebody once asked President Wilson why he always writes «Okeh» in approving memorandums and documents instead of the more common «O. K.»

«Because O. K. is wrong,» replied the president. «O-k-e-h is correct.»

The White house attaches scurried for dictionaries, but the best they could find under «O. K.» was that Andrew Jackson started it by spelling «all correct» «Oll Korrect.»

«Look it up in the latest dictionary,» suggested the president. They did, and this is what they found: «O. K.—A humorous or ignorant spelling of what should be ‘okeh,’ from the Choctaw language, meaning, ‘It is so;’ an article pronoun having a distinctive final use; all right; correct.»

So «Okeh Woodrow Wilson,» or more commonly, «Okeh W. W.» bids fair to become as famous as Roosevelt’s «Dee-lighted.»—St. Paul [Minnesota] News.

From Ernest Weekley, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, volume 2 (1921):

o.k. For orl korrect. U.S. since 1790.

From Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, fifth edition (1936), the first edition in the Collegiate series to include an entry for O.K. in the main text of the dictionary:

O.K., or OK. {Prob. fr. Choctaw oke, hoke, yes, it is.} Colloq., exc[ept] in endorsing documents. Correct; all right.

From H.L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States, fourth edition (1936), in the course of discussing ten theories about the origin of O.K.:

A ninth [etymology] derives it from a Choctaw word, okeh, signifying «it is so.» «Webster’s [Second] New International Dictionary» (1934) accepts this last, though adding a saving «probably,» but the Supplement to the Oxford Dictionary (1933) rejects it, saying that «it does not agree with the evidence.» There is yet a tenth etymology, whereby O.K. is made to originate in a libel of Andrew Jackson by Seba Smith (Major Jack Downing), who is said to have alleged, c. 1832, that he saw Jackson’s endorsement «O.K., Amos,» on the elegant pronunciamentoes drawn up for him by his literary secretary, Amos Kendall. Says a floating newspaper paragraph:

_{Possibly the general did use this endorsement, and it may have been used by other people also. But James Parton has discovered in the records of the Nashville court of which Jackson was a judge, before he became President, numerous documents endorsed O.R., meaning Ordered Recorded. He urges, therefore, that it was a record of that court with some belted business which Major Downing saw on the desk of the Presidential candidate. However this may be, the Democrats, in lieu of denying the charge, adopted the letters O.K. as a sort of party cry and fastened them upon their banners.}

This last theory, it seems to me, deserves more investigation than it has got.

From Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, first edition (1937):

o.k. ; gen. O.K. … Thornton records it at 1828 and gives an anticipation (likewise by Andrew Jackson) at 1790: but on these two instances the O.E.D. throws icy water and gives 1840 as the date. It either = oll (or orl) korrekt (or k’rekt) or is a Western U.S. error for order recorded (Thornton inclines to the latter origin); or again—the fashionable (but not the O.E.D. Sup.’s) view of the 1930’s—it may represent the Choctaw (h)oke, it is so, for Jackson presumably knew the Choctaw word and it was his opponents who, wishing to capitalize his well-known illiteracy, imputed (so it is held) the orl k’rect origin to the phrase’s first user.

From Allen Read, «The Evidence on ‘O. K.’,» in Saturday Review of Literature (1941) [combined snippets]:

When you first look at the vast quantity of writing on the origin of «O. K.», you find a wilderness of claims and counter-claims. But when you discard the hearsay evidence, the unfounded speculation, and the misread manuscripts, you get a reasonable pattern of historical development. I am able to present here the earliest documentary evidence; first, however, it is necessary to dispose of four alleged instances that arise from misrepresented manuscripts.

The earliest of these is dated December 8, 1565. The letters O. K. are said to occur at the end of the will of Thomas Cumberland, a lorimer of London, entered in the Archdeaconry Court registers. It is unreasonable to suppose that «O. K.» as we know it could have lain dormant for nearly three hundred years. The finder of it, as he says in Notes and Queries for June 10, 1911, did not think that the letters were the initials of the scrivener, but some such explanation must be the case. Another alleged instance comes from the year 1757, but an examination of the manuscript shows that it is not «O. K.» at all but an ill-written «Att.», standing for «Attestation» or «Attested by» at the end of a document. For many years faith has been put in an instance of 1790, from the records of Summer County, Tennessee, with this entry: “Andrew Jackson, Esq., proved a Bill of Sale from Hugh McGary to Gaspar Mansker, for a negro man, which was O. K.» But an investigator has examined this manuscript, as he writes in American Speech for April, 1941, and finds that the «O. K.» is clearly «O. R.», standing for «Order Recorded.» Finally, an alleged instance of 1815 has recently turned up in the diary of a Boston businessman, William Richardson. The marks have the appearance of a small «o k» without periods, interlined at a blotted place in the manuscript; but they do not fit into the sense well and are out of tone with the other parts of the text. All things considered, we can consign the instances of 1565, 1757, 1790, and 1815 to the same limbo.

The story begins, then, in the Spring of 1840, and is closely bound up with the political situation in New York City. The Democratic Party was intent on re-electing Martin Van Buren for a second term, and they kept up interest, particularly in the radical Locofoco branch by means of a set of social clubs. On March 11, 1840, the Locofoco newspaper, the New York New Era, listed the clubs as follows—the Butt Enders, the Tammany Temple, the Indomitables, the Huge Paws (named for their symbol, a muscular arm grasping a hammer) the Van Buren Association, and the Simon Pures. Twelve days later a new club made its first public appearance by an announcement of a meeting to be held March 24, 1840. This was «The Democratic O. K. Club,» and the name marks the first appearance of «O. K.»

The meaning of the name was held a secret, in keeping with political practices of the time. The meteoric rise of the “Know-Nothing” party a few years later was based on a similar secrecy, with oaths not to reveal its mysteries. As we shall see later, this «O. K. Club» was named after «Old Kinderhook,» the birthplace of Martin Van Buren, near Albany. In papers of the time Van Buren was referred to in such terms as «the magician of Kinderhook,» «your cunning Kinderhook Fox,» and «the Kinderhook pony.» …

From Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary [aka Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, sixth edition] (1949):

O.K., or OK. {From the O.K. Club, a Democratic organization supporting (1840) President Van Buren for re-election, fr. Old Kinderhook, N. Y., his birthplace. See Saturday Review of Literature, July 19, 1941} Colloq., exc[ept] in endorsing documents. Correct; all right.

From Midford Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951):

O.K., n. Also okay, okeh.

1. A member of the O.K. Club. Obs. [Earliest citation:] 1840 N.Y. D[ai]ly Express 9 April 2/2 The Whig young men have a grand rally tomorrow night. On Friday, come the Indomitables—O.K.’s.

2. The symbol or watchcry of the O.K. Club. Obs. or hist. [Earliest citation:] 1840 N.Y. D[ai]ly Express 3 April 2/2 About 9 o’clock a procession from the 10th and other up town wards marched down Center Street headed by a banner inscribed ‘O.K.’

b. An alleged abbreviation of «Oll (all) Korrect.» Obs. [Earliest citation:] 1840 Nat[ional] Intelligencer 7 April 1/2 The Locos translate ‘O.K.’ oll korrect (Locofoco orthography of which they are proud!)

From Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963) [unchanged in the eighth edition (1973)]:

OK or okay {abbr. of oll korrect, alter. of all correct} : all right

From The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971):

O.K. Orig. U.S. Also okay, okeh. Originally used as an abbreviation for ‘oll correct’, misspelling of ‘all correct’.

Alleged instances of O.K. in 1790 and 1828 have no evidence to support them. The earliest occurrence so far noted is in the Boston Transcript of 15 April 1840. In this and two examples from April and June the meaning is not clear, but the explanation ‘oll korrect’ appears on June 18 (see below). The attribution to Gen. Jackson was probably not intended to be taken seriously. Other jocular extensions of the initials follow in the same year. The suggestion that they represent the Choctaw oke ‘it is’ first appears in 1885, and does not accord with the evidence.

[Earliest cited examples:] 1840 Atlas (Boston) 18 June 2/1The band rode in a stage, which had a barrel of Hard Cider on the baggage rack, marked with large letters ‘O.K.’—oll korrect. Ibid. 19 Aug. 2/4 These initials, according to Jack Downing, were first used by Gen. Jackson. ‘Those papers, Amos {Kendall}, are all correct. I have marked them O.K.’ (oll korrect). The Gen. was never good at spelling.

From Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1983) [unchanged in the tenth (1993) and eleventh (2003) editions]:

OK or okay {abbr. of oll korrect, facetious alter. of all correct} (1839) : all right

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My assessment

Searches of the Google Books database and the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper database confirm that it is difficult to find a legitimate instance of OK in the sense of «all right» or «all correct» from before 1840. A sudden upsurge in instances of OK toward the end of 1840 suggests that that was the year when usage of the term became so common that newspapers could effectively devote space to talking about where the phrase originated—and to post jokes about it, such as an item asserting that, according to «the Ladies,» it stood for «only kissing;» a longer piece, «O. K. Orkward Kondition» jokingly suggested meanings ranging from «Onavailable Kandidate» (Daniel Webster) to «Oh! Klay» (Henry Clay).

As the OED points out, any reference to an instance of OK prior to 1839–1840 is highly suspect, given the absence of corroborating documentation. This in turn makes claims about use of the term during or before Andrew Jackson’s Presidency (1829–1837) highly suspect.

Another aspect of «O. K.» across much of the nineteenth century is how little attention mainstream dictionaries paid it until about 1890. Worcester’s dictionary of 1871 and Webster’s big dictionaries of 1828, 1840, 1847, and 1864 ignore OK completely. Webster’s International Dictionary (1890) acknowledges the term’s existence, but treats it merely as an abbreviation of all correct. Discussion of the term’s etymology fell to newspapers, memoirists, and language observers of varying levels of qualification.

Many major figures of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prescriptivist grammar—such as Seth Hurd, Richard Bache, Ebenezer Brewer, Charles Bardeen, John Bechtel, Albert Raub, Ralcy Bell, and Frank Vizetell—had nothing to say about OK. It’s as though the expression were so far outside the mainstream of U.S. English speech that the sentinels of proper English saw no need to condemn it.

The first general dictionary to give O.K. its own main-text entry was the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia of 1897–1914, followed by Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1934) and its compact spin-off, Webster’s Fifth Collegiate Dictionary (1936).

Both Century and Webster’s change their etymologies for O.K.—Century from «Origin obscure» (1897–1910) to «Choctaw okeh» (1911–1914+); and Webster’s from «Cant» (1916–1935) to «Chocktaw okeh» (1936–1948) to «Old Kinderhook» (1949–1962) to «oll korrect» (1963–present). In the various etymologies that the mainstream dictionaries offer, the heyday of the Choctaw okeh interpretation lasted for about 40 years, from the arrival of the 1911 Century dictionary until the arrival of the 1949 Webster’s Sixth Collegiate. Even during the 1911–1948 interval, such serious students of etymology as Richard Thornton, Ernest Weekley, and H. L. Mencken favored other hypotheses.

The Choctaw okeh hypothesis was put forward on two separate occasions (in 1885 and again in 1894) by the same man—W.S. Wyman, a professor of Latin at the University of Alabama and an active member of the Alabama Historical Society. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many people believed that O.K. was attested in English going back to a use by Andrew Jackson in 1790; Jackson’s years as an Indian fighter in a part of North America where Choctaw was the predominant Native American language lent further credence to the claim. But if you drop Jackson out of the picture, bump the first established instance of usage of «O. K.» from 1790 to 1839–1840, and observe that the earliest confirmed instances of the term took the form of a swarm of occurrences in New York and New England, the case for the Choctaw hypothesis becomes substantially weaker.

This, I think, is what the OED means when it says that the argument on behalf of the Choctaw okeh connection «does not accord with the evidence.»

Like the fictional Frenchman in The Madisonian in late 1840, I still don’t know what the origin of OK is. But I think it’s more likely to have been an abbreviation—fractured or not—of a phrase that already existed in English than a word imported and oddly transliterated from another language.

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UPDATE (4/3/2016): An instance from 1839

A search of the Portal of Texas History newspaper database turns up a match from 1839. From «The Rummy Cork,» in the [Houston, Texas] Telegraph and Texas Register (August 21, 1839), credited as coming originally from the Boston Post:

Mr. J. [«a very zealous temperance reformer»] was true to his appointment, and called for a pint of liquor. Mr. Fay, the younger [a distiller] making a great flourish of his tunnel and measure, filled the bottle with water. Then corking it tight, poured some rum on the cork. Mr. J. took a long smell of the cork and supposed it to be o.k. (all correct) asked «how much was to pay».

Аудио-запись с сайта learningenglish.voanews.com

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Millions of people all over the world use the word OK. In fact, some people say the word is used more often than any other word in the world. OK means all right or acceptable. It expresses agreement or approval. You might ask your brother, «Is it okay if I borrow your car?” Or if someone asks you to do something, you might say, “Okay, I will.” Still, language experts do not agree about where the word came from.

Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaw. The Choctaw word okeh means the same as the American word okay. Experts say early explorers in the American West spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. The language spread across the country.

But many people dispute this. Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word OK in reports published in the nineteen sixties. He said the word began being used in the eighteen thirties. It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words “all correct.” Some foreign-born people wrote “all correct” as “o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t,” and used the letters O.K. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word long ago. They said he put the first letters of his names — O and K — on each object people gave him to send on the train.

Still others say a political organization invented the word. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in eighteen forty. They called their group, the O.K. Club. The letters were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born — Old Kinderhook, New York.

Not everyone agrees with this explanation, either. But experts do agree that the word is purely American. And it has spread to almost every country on Earth.

Then there is the expression A-OK. This means everything is fine. A-OK is a space-age expression. It was used in nineteen sixty-one during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. He was the first American to be launched into space. His flight ended when his spacecraft landed in the ocean, as planned. Shepard reported: «Everything is A-OK.”

However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell an operator that a message had been received.

There are also funny ways to say okay. Some people say okey-dokey or okey-doke. These expressions were first used in the nineteen thirties. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons,” says it another way. He says okely-dokely.

This program was written by Shelley Gollust. I’m Faith Lapidus. You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

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Откуда появилось выражение ОК?

А сейчас, специальная программа по изучению английского языка радио «Голос Америки» — «Слова и их истории происхождения».

Миллионы людей по всему миру пользуются словом ОК. На самом деле, некоторые люди говорят, что это слово используется чаще, чем любое другое в мире. ОК означает, что все хорошо или приемлемо. Оно выражает согласие или одобрение. Вы можете спросить своего брата «Будет окей, если я возьму твою машину?» Или если кто-то попросит Вас сделать что-то, Вы можете сказать «Окей, я сделаю». Тем не менее, лингвисты не могут прийти к согласию по поводу того, откуда произошло это слово.

Некоторые говорят, что оно пришло из родного языка племени американских индейцев, известных как Чоктау. У Чоктау слово okeh означало то же, что современное американское слово окей. Эксперты утверждают, что ранние исследователи Запада Америки говорили на языке чоктау в 19 веке. Этот язык распространился по стране.

Но многие люди оспаривают это. Лингвист Аллен Уокер Рид пишет о слове ОК в докладах, публиковавшихся в 1960-е. Он писал, что это слово начало использоваться в 1830-е годы. Это был способ сокращения на письме слов «все правильно». Некоторые иностранцы писали «все правильно» как «о-с-е п-р-а-в-и-л-ь-н-о» и использовали буквы О.К. Другие утверждают, что железнодорожный рабочий по имени Обадайя Келли изобрел это слово давным-давно. Говорят, он помещал свои инициалы — О и К — на всех вещах, которые люди передавали ему для отправки поездом.

Другие исследователи говорят, что это слово изобретено политической организацией. Эта организация поддерживала в 1840 году на президентских выборах Мартина Ван Бюрена. Они называли свой группу «Клуб О.К.» Эти буквы были взяты из названия города, где родился Мартин Ван Бюрен – Олд Киндерхук, штат Нью-Йорк.

Не все согласны и с этим объяснением. Но эксперты соглашаются, что это слово – чисто американское. И что оно распространилось практически во все страны на Земле.

Есть также выражение «А-ОК». Оно означает, что все отлично. А-ОК – выражение из эпохи освоения космоса. Оно было использовано в 1961 во время полета астронавта Алана Шепарда. Он был первым американцем, отправленным в космос. Его полет окончился, когда его космическое судно приземлилось в океане, как было запланировано. Шепард доложил «Все А-ОК».

Однако некоторые эксперты утверждают, что это выражение появилось не в век освоения космоса. По одной из версий оно впервые использовалось на раннем этапе телефонизации, чтобы сообщать оператору, что сообщение было получено.

Есть также забавные способы произнесения слова окей. Некоторые люди говорят «оки-доки» или «оке-доке». Эти выражения впервые были использованы в 1930-е. Сегодня персонаж одного из американских телесериалов «Симпсоны» произносит его иначе. Он говорит «окели-докели».

Эта программа была написана Шелли Голлуст. С вами была Фейт Лапидус. Вы можете найти больше слов и историй их происхождения на сайте voaspecialenglish.com.

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Table of Contents (click to expand)

• The Origin Of OK
• From Tongue To Telegraph
• It’s “O.K.” To Cross Language Barriers

The word “OK” originated as a joke in the Boston Morning Post in 1839. It became famous as a campaign slogan for Martin van Buren’s presidential campaign, and was then repurposed in hundreds of different ways.

In our ultra-modern, fast-paced world, it seems impossible for someone to write a text message or an email without abbreviating a word or using an acronym instead of a full phrase (LOL, g2g, brb, ROFL, TTYL… just to name a few). There simply isn’t enough time to write things out or even say them out loud!

However, for those who think this is a modern phenomenon, I have some bad news for you… this tradition of cleverness (or laziness) dates back hundreds of years, if not longer. “OK”, one of the most ubiquitous words in the English language (even boasting a universal hand symbol), has tangled origins that remain hotly debated to this day. So… what’s the real story of OK?

Short Answer: It began as a joke, became famous as a campaign slogan, and was then repurposed in hundreds of different ways. The full story is also very satisfying…

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The Origin Of OK

This tale begins more than 175 years ago, in 1839, in the Boston Morning Post, when a particularly clever editor included it in an article about the Anti-Bell Ringing Society. In one particular line, he said “o.k. – all correct -“, which does look a bit strange, given that all doesn’t begin with “o” and correct doesn’t start with “k”. However, this was a common thing back in those days, when alternative spellings were used in abbreviations as a joke. “No go”, for example, was abbreviated to k.g. (“know go”). That editor was simply making a joke, and most people would have forgotten the phrase, or it would have fallen out of style, had this editorial piece not preceded the presidential election of Martin van Buren.

For those who aren’t fresh on their 19th century presidential trivia, Martin van Buren had a nickname – Old Kinderhook – as he was a native of Kinderhook, NY. Some of van Buren’s rabid supporters decided to form their own club to support their candidate, and using his initials as a basis, they formed the O.K. Club.

Given that this was only one year after o.k. had a passing brush with fame as a pop culture abbreviation, the two applications became intertwined and indistinguishable during the campaign. Opponents of van Buren used the initials in less than complimentary ways, such as “Out of Kash”, “Orfully Confused”, and a number of other less-than-brilliant mudslinging. The pundits and critics of the day had their fun with the phrase, injecting O.K. into the national vernacular, although with a bit more tact than this…

However, the unclear definition of what it meant, ranging from “all correct” to a tongue-in-cheek criticism of someone’s abilities/intelligence, lent it a certain intrigue that helped it stick in people’s mind – and mouth.

Also Read: Why Do We Only Ever Answer The Phone With ‘Hello’?

From Tongue To Telegraph

Just as the timing of the newspaper piece lined up nicely with van Buren’s presidential run, it also fit in historically well with the invention of the telegraph. Given that any message was costly and time intensive, a simple “reply message” was required, and early operators grasped onto O.K. as a sign that the transmission had been received and that it was “all correct”. This use of O.K. lasted far longer than van Buren’s nickname, or a passing joke by an editor, and became a common parlance in telegraph operators around the country.

That same telegraph transmission spread O.K. outside America and to the English-speaking world as a whole, and from there, the simplicity of the term, and its fluid meaning, appealed to countless other cultures. As a simple word for affirmation, a way to express tepid enthusiasm, or even a means of insulting something with a bit of tact, O.K. is one of the most versatile words in the English language – and beyond. Just think about the flexibility of the word (and mind, these are only a few of the seemingly endless uses):

“Okay! Let’s go!” – Excitement

“That meal was okay.” – Neutrality

“Okay… I guess I’ll go.” – Reticence

“This looks okay to me!” – Approval

See? Pretty useful, huh?

Also Read: Has The Internet Changed Languages Around The World?

It’s “O.K.” To Cross Language Barriers

Once the word became an international call sign, it gradually slipped into common speech, and clever humans even came up with a hand gesture to accompany it. For some reason, however, many different groups of people have staked their claim of possession on it, and in some cultures, people date back the use of okay hundreds of even thousands of years. Whether there is any validity to this, or just cultural amnesia, still remains unclear, which is why O.K. remains a point of discussion and fascination for many scholars and those with lots of time on their hands.

To give you some idea of the confusion centered around this word, here are a few examples of other cultural explanations and origin stories for this hotly debated word….

German – Ober-kommando (O.k.)

Chocktaw – okeh

Latin – omnes korrecta

Scotland – och aye

Greek – ola kala

Civil War – soldiers carrying signs saying “Zero (0) Killed”

Whatever explanation you want to believe, suffice to say that it is impossible to get everyone to agree on history, which is why etymology (the study of the origin of words) is such an intriguing field… for some people. All signs point to the Boston Morning Post and Martin van Buren explanation as being true, since it is historically verifiable, but who knows. As long as you’re O.K. with using it every day, do you really care where it actually came from?

How well do you understand the article above!

Can you answer a few questions based on the article you just read?

References (click to expand)

1. What is the origin of the word «OK»? | Lexico.com — www.lexico.com
2. OK gesture — Wikipedia. Wikipedia
3. Etymology, origin and meaning of the name ok by etymonline. The Online Etymology Dictionary

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So when “o.k.” appeared in print, it was intended to be the shortening of “oll korrect,” the humorous misspelling of “all correct.” According to Allan Metcalf, author of OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word, Boston Morning Post editor Charles Gordon Greene, who often wrote witticisms and took shots at

What does OK really stand for?

It’s more correct to write OK because it is actually an acronym. OK stands for “oll korrect”, or “all correct”.

When did OK become a word?

In 1839, an abbreviation craze was sweeping Boston. Charles Gordon Greene, editor of the Boston Morning Post, came up with an abbreviation — o.k. — which he indicated meant “all correct” if you didn’t know how to spell “all correct.”

Is OK a universal word?

“OK” (the literal word, not just the phonetic spelling) is by many sources reguarded as the most widely used word in the world, and that is a relatively new thing – having been coined in 1838 – so it’s pretty universal.

Is OK short for Okay?

There’s no difference between OK and okay. The older term, OK, (possibly) derived from an abbreviation for an intentional misspelling of “all correct.” The terms are both standard English. For extremely formal writing, always consult the relevant style guide.

Is OK an actual word?

OK (spelling variations include okay, O.K., ok and Ok) is an English word (originally American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference.It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet.

What does it mean when she says OK?

“That’s Okay” means that she wants to think long and hard before deciding what the penalty will be for whatever you have done. “That’s Okay” is often used with the word “Fine” and in conjunction with a raised-eyebrow “Go Ahead.” Once she has had time to plan it out, you are in for some mighty big trouble. “Pleae Do”

How many languages use OK?

In French, Dutch, and Hungarian, it may be spelled OK or oké. In Norwegian, Finnish, and Estonian, it is spelled okei or OK. In Swedish, Slovene, Serbian, Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, the word is written as okej or OK. And in Vietnamese it is spelled both ôkê and ok.

What is the most used word in the world?

‘The‘ is the most used word in the English-speaking world because it’s an essential part of grammar and communication.

What does OK stand for in states?

State Abbreviations

Postal Abbreviations for States/Territories
	1831	10/1963 – present
North Dakota	—	ND
Ohio	O.	OH
Oklahoma	—	OK

What are different ways to say OK?

Synonyms & Antonyms of OK

• agreeable,
• all right,
• alright,
• copacetic.
• (also copasetic or copesetic),
• ducky,
• fine,
• good,

What is the oldest word?

Mother, bark and spit are just three of 23 words that researchers believe date back 15,000 years, making them the oldest known words.

When did OK become a word UK?

How this weak joke survived at all, instead of vanishing like its counterparts, is a matter of lucky coincidence involving the American presidential election of 1840.

Is Okay polite?

Most people don’t spell it out, so “ok” is OK ! If you want to be polite and sincere, write “ok, thanks!” Or “ok, thank you very much. “

What is the proper way to write OK?

According to Gregg Reference Manual, okay is written without periods. “In sentences, the forms okay, okayed, and okaying look better than OK, OK’d, and OK’ing, but the latter forms may be used.” When used as a verb, spelling okay out is preferred. OK is the form supported by Merriam-Webster and the AP style guide.

Is OK always capitalized?

The word “OK” is all caps (i.e., capitalized) because it is not the full word “okay.” The word “okay” does not qualify for even an initial capital. The word “OK” is what is called an “abbreviation,” and the capital letters make abbreviations and acronyms stand out amid regular text.

Is Okay formal or informal?

Transitions – Informal & Formal

Informal	Formal
So	Therefore/Thus
Also	In addition, Additionally
ASAP	as soon as possible/at your earliest convenience
Okay, OK	acceptable

What is the difference between K OK and okay?

Originally Answered: What’s the difference between k ok and okay? Okay is the correct word, the one expressing agreement or acquiescence, and the other two—k and ok—are derivations of the actual word. OK is an abbreviation of okay. It’s just a shorter way of spelling the same thing.

What does OK mean from a guy?

Did you receive a text from a guy saying “OK” and sat there lifeless wondering what it means? Chances are, it means: OK. Yes, to whatever you said, where ever you wanted to go tonight, and however you wanted to get there.

How do you respond when someone says OK?

You can say whatever you like – such as: “Great!” “O.K.” “Good” “Yep” “No complaints” “All O.K. You?” “Could be better” “Couldn’t be better.” “Oh, man, things couldn’t be worse!” Get the idea? The “You okay?” thing is more of a UK ‘thing’ in greetings than anywhere else.

Is it OK to text OK?

“Okay” is obviously the most professional way to type the word, and I will vouch that it is also safe to casually use in text messages. Some disagree that “okay” can sound sarcastic or stern, especially when paired with a period.But the reason why okay is, well, okay, is because it’s the longest form of the word.