OK has been retrace to a nineteenth century Boston Morning Post clause where a author was satirizing the “ novel ” craze of abbreviation . The more things change , the more they ride out the same , I imagine .
Rachel Newer at Smithsonian Magazinehas pulled together anumberofsourcestracing the descent of all right to an article by Charles Gordon Greene in 1839 . Greene was satirizing poor grammar and spelling — very well stood for “ Oll Korrect ” by his enumeration .
This role was found by etymologist Allen Read , who go on the hunt for proof that OK was an American invention . Says The Economist in Read ’s 2002 necrology :
In his hunting for the origin of OK he was offered dozens of theories . The first to go were the European unity . They were appealing : Mr Read like what he called “ coltish ” ideas . But they had no substance , he said . He was convinced that OK was American . He warm to the idea that the popularity of Orrin Kendall cookie , supplied to soldier on the Union side in the civil war , had lived on as OK . He noted there was a telegraphy terminal figure know as Open Key . But OK prove to have been used much earlier . Writing in American Speech in 1963 , Mr Read tell that he had come across it in the Boston Morning Post in 1839 . In what was apparently a satirical article about defective spelling it stood for “ Oll Korrect ” . The next stage in OK ’s popularity was when it was adopt by followers of Martin Van Buren , who in 1836 became the eighth prexy of the United States , and unsuccessfully stood for re - election in 1840 , by which time he was widely known as Old Kinderhook , a nickname he derived from his home town . “ Vote for OK ” was snappier than using his Dutch name .
Mr Read show how , leg by stage , OK was spread throughout North America and the world to the moon , and then take on on its raw phase AOK , first used by space mass and lour on by purist . This being an utilisation in the academic world , there remain some doubters . Some believe that the Boston paper ’s reference to OK may not be the earlier . Some are pull to the call that it is of American - Amerind origin . There is an Indian word , okeh , used as an approbative reply to a question . Mr Read treated such doubting sedately . “ Nothing is absolute , ” he once write , “ nothing is forever . ”
Setting aside the contention of whether this really is the unfeigned origin of OK , it seems like the popularity derive from Martin Van Buren ’s reelection hunting expedition and then given life by , Good Magazinepoints out , James Gordon Bennett forging a written document showing Andrew Jackson using and coining OK as an abbreviation of “ Ole Kurrek . ”
That ’s a fair amount of offensive action go on to get OK into our lexicography . It almost feel like , since it was first a gag and then a slur on Jackson ’s intelligence activity , it should only be used in an ironic way . Or seen as a phrase that ’s been reclaim from its history . Regardless , it ’s hard to think of those two letter the same way of life now . I ’m not OK with it .
Image : OK by Eric Dorsey / flickr / CC by NC - ND 2.0
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